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  “Hey, Caterpillar,” he answered.

  “Jim, you’re not outside, are you?”

  “Outside? Nope. Any particular reason I should be?”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter. His voice calmed her nerves. “No, it’s... it’s stupid.”

  “What made you think I was outside?”

  “Someone rang the doorbell. But when I looked through the peephole, I couldn’t see anyone. And I couldn’t think of anyone else who might drop by at this hour.”

  “Probably just some neighborhood kids playing a prank.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I thought you told me you were doing better.”

  “I am. Most nights, I am.”

  “But...”

  She sighed. “Maybe I lied.”

  “I know these are scary times, Sarah, but they’re going to figure this thing out. They’re going to catch these killers, I promise. But, frankly, I’m worried that even after they do, you’re still going to be jumping at your own shadow.”

  “Aren’t you insightful this evening.”

  “Ever since—”

  “Hold on,” Sarah said, interrupting him after the doorbell rang for a third time.

  “I know it’s painful to talk about, but—”

  “It’s not that,” she said, walking back to the door.

  “Then what?”

  “The doorbell. Whoever it was is back.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

  She looked through the peephole again. This time there was someone on the porch, and while he was no one she recognized, she was overcome with a strange sense of déjà vu.

  Her visitor was tall—six-two, maybe six-three. His windblown black hair seemed to hold the memory of an earlier part on one side. The peephole stretched his face, making his expression hard to read. But wearing a suit and holding a clipboard, he didn’t seem to be ready for a killing spree.

  She moved the phone away from her head so that she didn’t shout into the mouthpiece. “Hello?”

  “Ma’am?” said the man from the other side of the door.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Ma’am, my name is Trevor Borin. I live two blocks over on Birchwood Lane. The homeowners’ association is doing a petition to get the city to put in some speed bumps,” he said, holding up the clipboard. “I sure would like to add your name to it, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s he want?” asked Jim.

  “He said he’s doing a petition to get speed bumps put in.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  “It’s kinda late for something like that, don’t you think?”

  “It’s barely eight-thirty.”

  Through the door, she said, “Did you just ring my doorbell a moment ago?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” answered Trevor.

  “Where were you when I came to the door?”

  “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. When you didn’t answer, I went to check a window to see if I could see anyone at home. All the lights were on, so I figured there had to be somebody here, and, well, every signature counts. I didn’t want to have to come back later if there was a chance you might be in. It’s cold out here, after all.”

  Through the peephole, which she kept her eye pressed against the whole time, she saw the condensation on Trevor’s breath swirling up and away.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Sarah said to Jim.

  “How about you tell him to wait there on the porch until I come over? That way you won’t have to worry about being alone.”

  “No. I can handle this.” Sarah had already decided she wasn’t going to open the door, even if Jim came over. He was both loyal and kind, but he wasn’t the man you’d place money on in a brawl.

  “I’m sorry, not tonight,” she told Trevor.

  “I’ll only take a minute. I promise.”

  “I’m sure you can get plenty of people to sign the petition. You really don’t need me.”

  He opened his mouth as if about to say something else. Then he stopped, sighed, and dropped his head in disappointment. He shook it a couple times. Satisfied that this conversation was over, Sarah was just about to step away from the door when he looked up again. His expression was stern. His eyes were focused intensely on the peephole. They seemed brighter than before, brighter than they should be if merely reflecting the light from the porch lamp. They glowed like a cat’s eyes, and the sight of them gave her a start. She felt as if he were looking through the door at her.

  “Something’s wrong,” she whispered into the phone as the man on her porch tossed the clipboard aside.

  “You really should open the door, Sarah,” he said, with an unnerving coolness.

  “What’s wrong?” Jim asked, in a voice that was quite the opposite. “What do you mean?”

  “Something…,” she said, nervously stepping back, trying to remember if she had introduced herself. No, she told herself. She hadn’t. Which begged the question: “How do you know my name?”

  He didn’t answer.

  To the phone, she said, “Jim, call the police.”

  Then the doorknob turned and the door rattled in its frame as a bright light seeped in through the cracks around it.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Sarah,” Jim said, his voice laden with worry.

  “Just do it, please!” she screamed as she backed farther away from the door.

  Suddenly, the frame splintered at the deadbolt and the door flew open. Pieces of wood exploded into the house like shrapnel.

  Terrified, Sarah ducked and held up a hand to shield her eyes. Then she saw something so strange she could hardly process it at the time: the light, even brighter now that the door was no longer blocking most of it, was not coming from a flashlight or any other source so mundane. In fact, it seemed to be emanating from the man, himself. It was as if his very being were aglow.

  Chapter 2

  EVEN AS THE DOOR REVERBERATED AGAINST the wall, Sarah had already started to turn toward the hallway behind her. Dropping the phone, she ran.

  French doors led from her bedroom to the deck behind the house. From there she could get to the street, go for help. But this was not the way she went. Instead, she headed toward Brandon’s bedroom. She would not leave without him in her arms.

  Her face felt flush, her mouth dry. She made a quick right at the end of the hall. She could see her son’s door directly in front of her. Tacked into it, three feet up, was a finger-painted sign Brandon had made that spelled out his name in multiple colors. She grabbed the handle and flung the door open. But she didn’t manage to get a foot inside before a hand grabbed her by the back of her sweatshirt.

  Trevor yanked her backwards with such force that her feet came out from under her. She slid, rolled, and tumbled along twenty feet of hardwood until she hit her bedroom door at the opposite end of the hall. Hip and shoulder throbbing, she immediately scrambled back to her feet. She tried to scream—you’re not taking my son!—only to find she desperately needed to inhale.

  She couldn’t move as fast as she wanted, and the pause to breathe cost her precious seconds. By the time she caught her breath, Trevor was already in Brandon’s room.

  Beyond the wiry old man in his pinstriped suit, she saw her son sitting up in his bed. His large blue-and-white pajamas made him look smaller than he was. His mouth hung open with surprise. He clutched a stuffed bear to his chest. He had named it Toto after the dog in the Wizard of Oz. It was Brandon’s loyal companion and confidant. It had witnessed most of the boy’s childhood. As Sarah struggled to her feet, she was terrified it might also witness his death.

  Trevor swung the bedroom door shut.

  No! No! No! Sarah charged in after him. But when she entered the room, she was alone.

  Her eyes darted about, searching for evidence that would disprove the obvious. The window to the left of Brandon’s bed was open. Well, if they weren’t in here, they must be out there. Sarah ran to it
and stuck her head out. She looked to the right and saw her VW parked in the driveway. To the left, there was nothing but the wide strip of grass that divided her house from her neighbor’s and led to her backyard.

  In the distance, a car roared to life.

  That’s them.

  She spun around and ran back through the house, headed this time for the front door. While en route, she stopped only long enough to grab her cell phone off the floor and her keys from her purse. Then she rushed outside, got in her Jetta, and reversed out of her driveway at high speed.

  Between her house and her car, she saw a Porsche at a distant four-way stop make a left without slowing down. At least she knew which way they were going.

  “Jim!” she screamed into the cell phone.

  He had hung up.

  She followed Trevor turn for turn, chasing him out of her quiet neighborhood onto Peachtree Street, where she then weaved between three lanes of cars, inching ever closer to her son and the man who took him. As she drove, her whole body shook. She had trouble controlling her breathing and tears blurred the road ahead.

  With one trembling hand, she dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone. When the operator answered, she blurted out, “My son’s been kidnapped! Some guy just broke into—”

  “Slow down. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Some guy broke into my house. He took my son.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sarah. Sarah, um, Sarah Winslow.”

  She continued to weave through traffic while she talked until she found herself behind the Porsche. It had been easier to catch than she had expected.

  Squeezing the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she freed up both hands to flash her lights and lay on her horn.

  “I’m behind him now!” she told the operator. “He’s in a silver Porsche. The license plate number is AGH...”

  Before she could finish, she saw the Porsche pull into the right lane and its driver stick his hand out his window, waving for her to go around. She immediately felt sick.

  Oh, God...

  “Could you please repeat that?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, hoping against hope that the waving hand didn’t mean what she knew it must, she pulled forward so that she was parallel with the Porsche, then turned to look at the driver. The man behind the wheel was young—not Trevor. He flipped her off.

  The tremor in her body seized her lungs. She could barely breathe. She felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

  The 911 operator kept talking—“Ms. Winslow, are you there? Could you repeat that please?”—but Sarah couldn’t hear the woman over the roar of her own chaotic emotions.

  The tapestry of billboards, storefronts, neon signs, and car lights seemed to unravel, making foreign a block of road she would have previously claimed to know well. Shaking, she slammed on the brakes. She no longer trusted her ability to drive.

  The car skidded to a stop. Frustrated drivers honked their horns, but she heard no metal collapse against metal, no fiberglass crack, no telltale signs that her erratic driving had resulted in an accident.

  Clutching the steering wheel with both hands, the phone now in her lap, she twisted her head over each shoulder, examining the drivers of the other cars around her. She couldn’t see much from her vantage point, so she scrambled out of the car for a better look.

  Maybe her son and his abductor were still nearby. She’d been following the wrong car, but that didn’t mean she was going the wrong way, did it? They could be in that Toyota, or that Ford, or that Mazda.

  But they weren’t.

  And when she was finally forced to admit to herself that her son was gone, really gone, the only three words she didn’t want to think about at that moment pushed their way into her head.

  God is blind.

  The little strength she still had fled her body. Her legs went weak.

  God is blind.

  She collapsed to her knees, crying.

  God is blind.

  She tried not to imagine those words burned into her son’s torso, but the dark prospect of his future had taken hold of her mind’s eye.

  Chapter 3

  “CATERPILLAR, COME ON. We’ve got to get you out of the road.” Jim was squatting beside Sarah. He was still wearing the black slacks and blue button-down he’d had on at St. Ives Elementary earlier in the day. He wrapped her left arm over his shoulders and lifted with his knees.

  As she stood, still feeling unstable on her feet, she wiped away her tears on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  Jim had panicked when Sarah told him to call 911. He had rushed to his Honda and called from the road. Coming from the opposite direction, he arrived only moments after Sarah had stepped from her car and collapsed.

  After pulling into the far right lane, throwing his car into park and turning on his blinkers, he maneuvered his way through the traffic to her. Several other motorists, including the driver of the Porsche, had stopped to stare. No one, though, had come to check on her.

  But could he blame them? Would he get close to her if he didn’t know her? Probably not. She looked distraught, unhinged. In a world where violence seemed ever on the rise, getting close to someone like that could be putting yourself in harm’s way.

  That wasn’t the case with her, of course. She was simply fragile and broken. But with somebody else... who knows?

  Sarah wrapped her arms around him, holding on as if he were all that tethered her to this world. She whined, desperate to say something, but her words were lost.

  “It’s okay,” he said. He could feel her whole body shake. “We need to get you out of the road. Can you walk with me over to the sidewalk?”

  She nodded her head, which was still pressed into his shoulder, and held tight a little longer. When she finally let go, Jim guided her away from her car, one slow step at a time. With enough onlookers to cause a traffic jam, he had no trouble easing her out of the road.

  He let go of her once they were on the sidewalk. She slumped back into a seated position, legs crossed, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.

  Kneeling beside her, Jim asked, “What happened?”

  “Somebody took Brandon,” she whined. “He just came in and took him right out of his bedroom.”

  Jim sighed from the weight of those words. Although he wanted to sit down and console her, to put his arms around her and hold her until, by will alone, her son was returned, he knew that he had to bring order to this chaos.

  He gently took her hands away from her face, and when she finally turned to look at him, he said, “I’m going to move your car, okay? Will you be all right here for a few minutes?”

  She nodded.

  “Your keys are still in the ignition?”

  She nodded again.

  He used his thumbs to wipe the tears away from her cheeks. “I’ll be right back.”

  A somber smile. Her lips trembled as she tried to thank him.

  After he moved her car into a nearby parking lot and got her into his, he drove her back to her house. Halfway there, he said, “I called the police again. There’s an officer waiting to take your report.”

  Looking out the passenger window, Sarah didn’t respond. She had one fist cupped to her mouth and she chewed anxiously on her finger.

  “Don’t worry. They’re going to find him.”

  She still didn’t respond.

  Then, moments before they pulled up behind the police car parked in front of Sarah’s house, the headlights dimmed and the song on the radio fizzled into static. Pragmatic Jim wasn’t given to flights of fancy. He didn’t believe in things science couldn’t explain, but he suddenly felt—no, knew—something...

  Then it was gone.

  Chapter 4

  AFTER A MOMENT, THE STATIC CLEARED and the headlights returned to their full brightness. The ominous feeling that had left Jim apprehensive no longer possessed him. In fact, it had come and gone so quickly he refused to consider it as anything more than his imaginati
on at work. Well… mostly.

  Sarah, who had also noticed these environmental changes, who had felt the same apprehension, didn’t dismiss them as quickly. However, she said nothing to Jim. She worried that if she even squeaked out a word she might start to cry again.

  Two uniformed officers waited until Jim had helped her inside before questioning her. According to their nametags, they were Anthony Carter and Nick Hall.

  Jim sat Sarah on the couch, got her a box of Kleenex from the bathroom, and asked her if she needed anything else. “No,” she said, smiling weakly at him. He took a seat in the puffy, plaid lounge chair positioned on the opposite side of the coffee table.

  She immediately grabbed a tissue from the box, wiped both eyes, then let it fall to the floor in front of her.

  “Tell us what happened,” Nick said.

  “Somebody kidnapped my son.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was tall. Skinny. He had dark hair parted to one side.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “A suit. Gray... or black. I... I can’t remember for sure.”

  The officer nodded while his partner took notes, then looked at Jim. “Were you here when this happened?”

  “No,” Jim said.

  And with that, Nick lost interest in him. He turned his attention back to Sarah and started in with more questions.

  She pulled another tissue from the box and wiped her eyes again. She answered everything she was asked while resisting the urge to demand action. My son is missing. Why don’t you do something?

  They were her only hope. As laborious as their questions were, she had to trust in the process.

  Upon their request, she told the story of the kidnapping, editing out only the blinding light she had seen and that odd sense of déjà vu she’d felt upon first laying eyes on the kidnapper. The truth of those moments was still stitching itself together in her head, and she wasn’t sure how to explain them without sounding crazy.