If she laughed, it would be a tender, loving laugh, not the laugh of the girl downstairs, not a cruel laugh.

In the closet, he slid hangers along the large wooden dowel, going through the dresses she'd left behind. "All terribly outdated, I'm afraid," she'd told him once. "I don't know why I keep them."

But she kept everything. That's how she was. He'd once read an article about a woman who never threw anything out. Her house was so full of junk that you couldn't get through it without crawling. He'd shown the article to his sister, telling her that's what was going to happen to her if she didn't watch out. But he really hadn't minded. He loved her idiosyncrasies.

Some of the dresses were really costumes, left over from the days when she'd been part of a vaudevillian-type act that spent summers traveling from one small town to another.

He was searching for something sedate, because after all, clothes made the woman. He found a pink dress. The top looked almost like a man's shirt, but the bottom half was full and long. He pulled it out, then found an apron to go over it.

He wasn't anxious to see the girl again-she'd been mean to him. But he didn't have time to waste hiding upstairs. He had to make things happen. Before leaving the room, he debated about undergarments, finally deciding on a slip and pair of hose. Downstairs, he found the girl where he'd left her-lying on her side, unable to move.

He lifted her upright, settling the chair legs firmly on the floor.

She was going to be the one, he told himself. She had to be the one, even if he had to shove her into the mold. But still he hesitated when it came time to take off her blindfold so he could dress her. At the last minute, he pulled his ski mask over his head.

He didn't want her to see his face yet. That way their relationship would remain impersonal.

He removed her blindfold.

For a moment, she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if expecting him to hit her again.

"I'll hit you only when you do something wrong," he explained. "If you disobey, you get punished."

She opened her eyes.

It was the first time he'd gotten a really close look at her.

She was perfect.

Small-boned and delicate, with eyes as blue as delphiniums. Of course, right now those eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, but that was understandable. He was sure she would look much better when she was cleaned up and rested.

"Let's try the tape again. What do you think?"

She nodded.

He jerked off the tape.

She flinched and gasped, then pressed her lips together.

It seemed she could be trained.

He was sorry to see that the tape left red marks on her skin. He was sorrier to see that her mouth was swollen, her cheek discolored from his blow, chin bruised. He brushed away the guilt, turned and filled a glass with water. With his back to her, he opened a brown prescription bottle and added a few drops of liquid to the Water. It was a cocktail of his own invention, pentobarbital mixed with morphine. To that he added three green drops of mint flavoring. He returned to the girl and lifted the water to her lips.

Gillian took two small swallows before noticing the bitterness. She pulled back, remembered the drugs that had been found in the blood of two of the victims. "I have to go to the bathroom," she told him. Maybe she could make herself throw up.

He led her down a hall into a small, windowless room. "I really shouldn't undo your hands," he said, "because you haven't earned my trust. But let's say this will be another test."

He pulled a pocketknife from his brown canvas pants, flicked open a blade, and sliced the tape, freeing her hands. Then he shoved her into the bathroom and locked the door from the outside.

She used the toilet, then looked at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her face was bruised, her lip swollen. She kept staring. She was trying to recall something important she'd planned to do when the room began to move and the floor began to slant. She grabbed the edge of the white porcelain sink. It dissolved under her hands, and she collapsed.

The key turned in the lock. The door opened. She felt his hands under her armpits. With her feet and legs trailing behind like dead weight, he dragged her across the floor.

Six hours after receiving Mary's call, Anthony arrived at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Luckily a couple of rookie NCAVC agents had been eager to do the fieldwork on his newly assigned Utah infant abduction case. They would stay in contact, faxing him information as they received it.

Immediately upon landing, he called Mary to let her know he was in town. "Where are you now?" he asked, heading down the escalator to pick up his checked luggage.

"At Gillian's house." She gave him the address and directions.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." He folded his phone and slipped it into the pocket of his black trench coat, retrieved his luggage from the carousel, and cut over to the car rental counter.

The heavy afternoon traffic hadn't yet hit. He was able to get on 35W without any trouble. He headed north, toward downtown Minneapolis, the U of M, and Dinkytown.

He had a problem with the one-way streets and ended up finding the address after two wrong turns.

Cars were parked in front of the house. The yard was surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape. Beyond the tape were clusters of people, reporters, video camera technicians, some just hanging around, taking in the sights.

The day was brilliantly sunny, about fifty degrees. When he stepped into the street, the crisp air was welcome after the stuffiness of the car. His stomach growled, but he ignored it as he edged through the mob of people, flashing his ID when necessary.

"Ooh, FBI," a black girl said, pausing between each letter and batting her eyes in mock admiration. She had a hundred-dollar braided hairdo and fifty-dollar, mile-long, curved red fingernails. "Lookie. FBI."

Her lack of respect didn't make him mad. Quite the contrary. He admired her don't-take-shit attitude. She would never be a victim.

"Excuse me, ladies." He squeezed past while they continued to check him out.

In the yard, a team of workers had established a string grid and were going over every square inch, raking and vacuuming the grass for anything that may have dropped from the kidnapper. Another officer was crouched on the ground, making a cast of a footprint.

Anthony found Mary inside. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt with untucked tails, and a gray sweater. Her hair hadn't been brushed, and she wasn't wearing any makeup. As soon as she saw him, she hurried over.

He grasped both her cold hands and rubbed them between his.

"Anthony-thank you so much for coming."

It was unsettling, seeing her in the role of the victim's family member. A battle was going on inside her between professional FBI agent and hurt, bewildered sister. The bewildered sister was winning. He wanted to put his arms around her. Instead, he released her hands and asked, "Have they found anything?"

"Fibers that they've taken to the lab. They were navy blue, like the others. Officers are going door to door, conducting interviews. A couple of witnesses identified a photo of Tate, saying they saw him hanging around on more than one occasion. They found some minute bits of mud on the carpet that they're sending to the University of Minnesota's agricultural campus to see if anyone there can determine where the mud came from."

"Fingerprints?"

"All over the place. They lifted one set that didn't match anybody we know of who's been here. Those are being fed to databases right now."

"What about the footprint outside?"

"Left by a work boot. They think it might belong to a man. Any man. Maybe our man. You know how that is. This house is next to a college campus. A lot of traffic goes through the yard."