phone and his wallet and his keys, and picking up the ski mittens, and his computer, he went out.
He almost forgot to set the alarm, but he remembered it and punched in the code.
All the lights were still on.
As he drove away, he could see in his rearview mirror the lights burning all over the first and second floors. He liked it. The house looked alive and safe and good to him.
Oh, this was glorious to own this house, to be here in this dark forest once again, to be close to this immense mystery. It felt good to work his feet as he drove. He stretched his fingers, then closed them tight on the leather-covered steering wheel.
The rain was washing over the windshield of the Porsche, but he could see through it quite easily. His headlamps flashed over the uneven bumpy road ahead, and he found himself singing as he rode along, pushing the speedometer as high as he dared to go.
Think. Think like a kidnapper who has to hide forty-two children. Think like a ruthless tech genius that can bludgeon a little girl to death and throw her on a lonely spit of beach in the rain, and get back to where he,s warm and comfortable, where he,s got his computer handy for routing his bank demands and his calls.
Why, those kids are probably right under everybody,s nose.
Chapter Ten
REUBEN KNEW THE BACK ROADS of Marin County the way he knew the streets of San Francisco. He,d grown up visiting friends in Sausalito and Mill Valley, and taking the inevitable hikes on Mount Tamalpais and through the breathtaking paths of Muir Woods.
He didn,t need to visit the sheriff,s office before beginning his little dragnet, but he did it anyway, because he was hearing the voices now clearly, all around him, and he knew he,d be able to hear their voices inside without their ever knowing it, of course, and they just might know something they were not telling the world.
He parked near the San Rafael Civic Center and took up his stand in the trees, far from the gaggle of reporters camped before the doors.
His shut his eyes, and sought with all his will to home in on the voices within the office, surfing for the likely words these people would be repeating, and within seconds he was picking up the threads. Yes, the kidnappers had called again, and they weren,t going to tell that to the public, no matter who was demanding it. "We tell what serves a purpose!" a man insisted. "And there is no purpose." "And they,re threatening to kill another child."
Babble and protest; point and counterpoint. The bank in the Bahamas would give them absolutely no cooperation, but in truth their hackers weren,t finding out anything there that was helpful on their own.
But the body of the little girl, rain or no rain, surf or no surf, had yielded soil samples from shoes and clothing that connected her to Marin. Of course that wasn,t conclusive; but the absence of any other soil samples was a good sign.
And it was all Reuben needed to confirm what he already suspected.
Cop cars were crawling the forest and mountain roads.
There were random checkpoints and house-to-house searches.
So law enforcement was his only enemy now as he began his search.
He was getting back in the car when something caught him off guard. It was the scent - the scent of evil that had been so unmistakable in the nights before.
He turned his head, uncertain, not willing to be drawn off on any errand other than the kidnap, and then the voices came clear to him from the melee of the reporters - two youthful, mocking voices, offering innocent questions, relishing answers that gave them information they already possessed. Sinister, particular, undeniable. "For our school paper, we just thought we,d come out here...."
"And did they really just beat her to death, poor little girl!"
He felt the tingling all over the surface of his skin, as sweet and pervasive as the revulsion.
"Well, we,re off now, we have to get back to San Francisco...." But that wasn,t where they were going!
He went to the edge of the little thicket in which he,d been hiding. He saw the two young men - Princeton haircuts, blue blazers - waving good-bye cheerily to their reporter comrades.
They were hurrying across the parking lot towards a waiting Land Rover with its lights on. Driver inside anxious, scared out of his wits, Will you come on!
It was all a