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She heard footsteps behind her and Jim gently said, “You called?”

  Without answering, she spun to face him, threw her arms around his torso, pressed her head to his chest, and squeezed her eyes shut. For longer than she ever had before, she held tight, waiting for that last terrible thought to abate. Brandon would come home. No matter where that evil thing had taken him, she would find him.

  When she finally let go and stepped back, she noticed that the darkness in the room seemed to twist Jim’s worried expression into a sinister sneer. This troubled her enough to flip the light switch on the wall.

  “I need to tell you something,” she said, “but...” Then she faltered. She knew the words she was about to say would sound as strange on her tongue as they would to his ear.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Please, promise me you won’t think I’m crazy.”

  “Okay, sure. I promise.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I promise.”

  She took a deep breath, and eased into it. “I just have this feeling that Detective Hammond is sitting around waiting for a call that’s not going to come.”

  “You don’t think the kidnapper will call?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No.”

  “What would make you think that?”

  “The guy who kidnapped Brandon—” she blurted out, but stopped herself before adding everything else she planned to say: “He’s not human. I don’t know what he is. It’s all so strange. When he broke in, there was this bright light shining out from underneath his skin. That’s why I know there won’t be any call. Because whatever took him wants something other than money.”

  She stopped herself because two things occurred to her. The first was that if she wanted her son back, she would have to find him. The second was that she’d need Jim’s help, and she couldn’t take the chance that he wouldn’t believe her. She’d tell him eventually, just not yet. “It’s not important,” she said instead. “It’s just something I can feel.. I can’t wait around here.”

  “You have to. It’s the best thing you can do right now.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Jim looked over his shoulder, then closed the bedroom door to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. “Sarah, what are you thinking?” His voice was now both softer and more urgent than it had been before.

  “I need to go find him, myself. Will you help me?” When she heard the words aloud, she could feel for the first time the troubling undercurrent of such a plan. Detective Hammond, who seemed to distrust all of mankind, and especially her, had already lumped her into the pool of suspects. What would he think if the two of them took off? What if her fears really had gotten the best of her and every supernatural event she’d witnessed had played out only in her mind? What if, while she was out, the kidnapper really did call?

  The questions, feeding on her fear and self-doubt, almost debilitated her, but she pushed them away.

  “We can’t do that.”

  Sarah walked over to Brandon’s bed and sat down on the corner. She ran her hand across the checkered blanket, smoothing the creases nearest her. Then she picked up his stuffed bear, which had fallen to the floor. “Jim, you’ve got to trust me.”

  Jim kneeled beside her. “I do. I’d trust you with my life. But be reasonable, Caterpillar,” he pleaded. “Running off into the night will only make things worse.”

  “Maybe,” she said, without conviction. Then, she asked, “Where did that come from, anyway?”

  “What?”

  “‘Caterpillar.’ Why do you call me that?”

  Unlike the weak half-smile Jim had offered before, he now served up one that was genuine. “The first time I saw you was in the teacher’s lounge. I don’t think you noticed me. I had just started and didn’t know anybody yet. But, boy, I noticed you. I’m pretty sure everyone did. And all I could think was: There goes one amazing little caterpillar.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “No, listen... You came in with a stack of papers under one arm, headed straight for the coffee machine, dodging and weaving. All the while, your mind seemed to be somewhere else, like you were juggling a thousand things in your head.”

  “And?”

  “And, well, I marveled. I thought to myself you seemed just like a caterpillar: colorful and graceful, juggling so many thoughts like it does its legs, and, no doubt, hiding a butterfly behind that quiet efficiency.”

  Sarah smiled back, still scared, yet pleasantly distracted. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “You never asked.”

  “For a math teacher, you have quite a way with words.”

  He sat down beside her on the bed and put one arm around her. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash?”

  She looked down at the stuffed bear in her hands, unsure of how to answer. Maybe she would have to tell him about what she saw after all. Before she could decide what to say next, Detective Hammond pounded on the door and stepped into the room without waiting for an answer.

  Behind him stood the two uniformed officers who had put her through the first round of questions. When she’d first met them, they symbolized hope, order, the conscientious battle of good against evil. Now, standing behind Hammond, the young one with his hand resting on his gun holster, they made her uneasy. She rose to her feet. So did Jim.

  Hammond was carrying a soft leather book. A red ribbon stapled to its back hung loose.

  He held the book up to draw Sarah’s attention to it. “Care to explain?”

  She didn’t recognize it. She nervously took a step back. “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s your son?” he asked.

  “I don’t know where he is. For Christ’s sake, that’s why you’re here!”

  “Is he still alive?”

  Sarah’s lip trembled. She shook her head with disbelief. She knew the detective had been suspicious of her, but she’d figured it would wear off after he’d spent more time with the case. She couldn’t understand what he had found that could make her the center of the investigation.

  “Answer me! Is Brandon still alive?” Hammond demanded.

  Heart pounding, she asked, “What is that?”

  “You know damn well what it is. This is your diary, Ms. Winslow. I found it between the mattress and box springs of your bed.”

  She took another step back and the detective countered with a step forward.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We can do this here or downtown, Ms. Winslow. I’d rather find your son alive, so the sooner you start talking, the better.”

  “But—”

  Before she could explain that she hadn’t kept a diary since her husband, Matthew, died, Detective Hammond passed the book to one of the officers, reached under his coat for his handcuffs, and said, “Ms. Winslow, I’m taking you in. Please turn around and place your hands on your head.”

  “I didn’t do anything, Jim,” Sarah said as she turned around. “I swear I didn’t.”

  When she looked at him, she could see doubt. The wrinkles at his temples deepened. And with his mouth parted ever so slightly, he had a faraway look. It was as if the scene he was watching unfold was one he couldn’t quite fathom. But was it because they were arresting her or because they’d figured her out so quickly? Was he thinking back to when she told him no kidnapper would call and assuming she’d known that because she’d committed the crime? Did he assume that’s why she wanted to leave? God, did he think his phone call to her earlier had just been to create an alibi?

  That all seemed so improbable. At this moment, though, she supposed it didn’t matter. She placed her hands on the back of her head. Facing the same open window through which the kidnapper had taken Brandon, she understood that she was truly on her own.

  Both Jim and the police would be there to help her once she ultimately proved the diary wasn’t hers, but how
long would it take? Hours? Days? Even minutes could cost Brandon his life. She didn’t have that kind of time to waste.

  A breeze wafted in through the open window, beckoning her into the night. It implored her to follow in the footsteps of the kidnapper. It assured her that doing so would lead her intuitively to her son.

  She imagined herself leaping headfirst through the open window, landing on the grass and rolling to her feet, running, running...

  Then, she heard the snap of a button popping open as Hammond removed his handcuffs from the leather case on his belt. She could feel the hopelessness that would follow after they locked into place around her wrists. She pictured Hammond questioning her for hours despite her demands for a lawyer. Even if she was letting her imagination run away with her and the detective did get her a lawyer, what good would it do? A lawyer could get her out on bail, but when? Actually, if she was accused of murder—Murder! Of Brandon!—he might not even be able to do that. But if he could, when would she get out? Monday? Maybe. But Monday would be too late. She wasn’t going to be able to prove that the diary wasn’t hers in just a few hours. She’d need the help of her lawyer and experts and God knows who else. And Brandon might not make it until Monday.

  Her thoughts whirled about chaotically, a ragged cyclone that overtook her body and propelled her forward. She was moving toward the window before she realized what she was doing.

  Somebody yelled, “Stop!” It was probably Hammond, but the voice was like the memory of a memory and didn’t register until she was already diving headfirst into the night.

  “Sarah!” Jim called.

  Him she heard clearly. “What are you doing?” his tone implied. “Are you crazy? They’ll never believe your innocent now!”

  He was right. Once her feet had committed her to action, there was no turning back. She’d just cemented her guilt in the minds of Atlanta’s finest.

  She hit the ground with a thud, her forearms up to brace her fall and protect her face. She rolled over grass and dirt, dry leaves and vines of ivy. Then she was on her knees, up, running.

  She heard another call from Hammond for her to stop, but she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t. She ran down the gentle slope of her backyard and scampered over the chain-link fence that divided her yard from her neighbor’s.

  Overhead, white clouds scudded across a crescent moon. From the many shadows around her, crickets chirped, an owl hooted, the breeze rustled leaves. Sarah was sure she would hear gunshots slice through all that any second. If she was lucky, they’d whiz past her, doing no more than accelerating her rapid heartbeat. If she wasn’t, she’d find herself on the ground, clutching a bleeding wound and praying to live. But no gunshots came. Instead, she heard the footfalls of officers chasing her and their voices calling her name.

  She had a solid lead. She needed to make smart decisions if she wanted to keep it. In her neighbor’s manicured yard, she caught a glimpse of the creek that ran behind the houses on this street and abruptly changed directions. Already winded from fear, she knew better than to hurry from one neighbor’s yard to the next. Her only hope would be to head away from the houses.

  What am I doing?

  At the same time, her neighbor, Allison something-or-other, turned on flood lights that illuminated the backyard. She stood at the glass doors overlooking her deck watching Sarah go.

  Barefoot over grass and twigs and things she preferred not to think about, she ran. Her heart pounded in her ears, muting the world around her. She slowed for only a second at the foot of the yard when she stopped to unlatch the rear gate, then slid down the muddy incline to the creek.

  She splashed through the ankle-deep water to the other side and crawled back to the top of the trench, grabbing at roots, clawing her manicured nails deep into the soft earth. Although the land on both sides of the creek belonged to her and her neighbors, nobody had tended to this side of their property. Here, the wild remained wild.

  As she ran up the hill past the creek, the overgrown brush pricked and scratched and grazed her muddy feet. The aged branches of oaks first split the floodlight into slices, then blocked it out completely. Finally, she had the darkness she craved.

  She didn’t know how quickly the police could dispatch a chopper to scan the area, or if they even would. She didn’t know if they would wait for her on the property that immediately backed up to hers or if they would send dogs or if they would come after her themselves.

  She only knew she couldn’t stop.

  But suddenly she heard the angry hiss of a raccoon, and she did stop. Raccoons were vicious creatures, blessed by God with a touch of crazy.

  Chapter 7

  FEW PEOPLE KNOW THAT AS WE PASS through this world, we leave a sort of moving fingerprint. Every step we take is forever etched into the universe around us. Fewer still ever see them. Brandon, however, saw them with a clarity and frequency that remain unmatched.

  This is why, when he awoke on a queen bed in a strange room he knew he had not been the first child to find himself there. Everywhere he looked, he saw translucent strangers silently acting out the last moments of their lives. A girl of about seven franticly attempted to break one of the two large windows that looked out onto darkness. A fourteen-year-old boy cowered in the corner, hands wrapped around his chest and mumbling something Brandon couldn’t make out. A five-year-old girl peed on herself by the door, the urine trickling down her bedazzled jeans and pooling on the floor.

  He also saw an old man with a stubbly gray beard and sunken cheeks (homeless, if his clothes were any indication) pacing in a small circle, a soldier running through the girl who had peed on herself and slamming all his weight into the bedroom door, and a woman in a bright red sweater sitting cross-legged under one of the windows, crying into her hands.

  Brandon had been terrified when he’d first seen these moving memories two years ago. He’d mistaken them for ghosts, but had since learned they were no more capable of original thought or action than the photos in a family album. They would simply move through a course of action over and over again, regardless of what happened around them, until they slowly faded away.

  He’d also learned how to block them out, allowing them to reveal themselves at his discretion only. No longer wanting to witness these memories—or, as he called them, “ghosts of ghosts”—he put his mind to that task. He concentrated on the tiny imperfections in the plaster ceiling above the bed, connecting himself with the smallest elements of this world he could see, and blocked out anything beyond the physical.

  Slowly, slowly, the ghosts of ghosts became thinner. Had he looked, he would have seen the pee on the floor became indistinguishable from the floor, itself. The clothes became colorless. The faces of these strangers grew fuzzy, then featureless. As they finally faded out, the soldier went first, completely disappearing just as he started another run at the door. The seven-year-old girl who was in the midst of smashing a half-robot, half-truck Transformer against the glass, went last; it was the strongest memory.

  His mother never knew that he saw these ghosts of ghosts. None of his classmates or teachers knew, either. He’d never told a soul. At first, he’d kept the secret because he was afraid he was going crazy. Then he kept it because he was afraid other people might think he was going crazy. And then, once he’d learned to control the gift, he’d kept the secret because it was special, and keeping it to himself made it even more special.

  Once the ghosts of ghosts were gone, he sat up. He was still in his checkered pajamas. He didn’t get out of bed since he knew that the door before him was locked. He also knew that neither it nor the windows would break no matter what he might try. And, although he didn’t know the man who had abducted him, he could be certain crying or begging or praying would not dissuade his kidnapper from his plans.

  He’s a bad man, Brandon thought. A bad, bad man.

  Afraid, but with nowhere to go, the boy stayed where he was. He sat still and quiet and waited.

  The dolls and G.I. Joes, Transforme
rs and stuffed Muppets stared up at him menacingly. They might have fooled someone else into thinking he was safe, but not Brandon. They had been left there for him and the other children that had been trapped in this room. His eyes moved to the door, then settled there. There was no reason to look anywhere else. Whatever danger was coming his way would enter through that door.

  Time marched slowly forward and, much to his surprise, he found his fear taking a backseat to his exhaustion. He was actually getting sleepy. He must not let himself drift off. He had to be alert for whatever was coming his way. The ghosts of ghosts hadn’t shown him what that would be, but they’d shown him enough to know that going to sleep would be the worst thing he could do right now.

  He slapped his face, pinched his hand, bit the inside of his cheek. When the bad man entered the room, still dressed in the dark gray suit he’d been wearing when he kidnapped Brandon, he brought a ceramic doll. From across the room, Brandon could see it had sandy blond hair and pajamas just like his... and then he realized something both ominous and significant: it was him—or at least the representation of him, anyway.

  “What do you want from me?” Brandon asked, his voice cracking.

  The bad man didn’t close the door to the bedroom, he noticed. How strange. Why wouldn’t he do that? Simple, he told himself: he didn’t think Brandon would try to escape.

  “Nothing that will bring you harm, my son,” the bad man said. “Trust me.”

  His voice was almost mesmerizing. Resonating through Brandon’s ears and bouncing around his brain, it seemed captivating, calming. He suddenly forgot all about the open door.

  The bad man sat down on the bed next to Brandon, doll in hand. “I made this for you.” He handed it to the boy.

  Brandon accepted the gift, studying it closely.

  The doll had been made with even greater artistry than he’d expected. Intricately detailed, it had been sculpted with love and patience. As Brandon gazed at the ceramic figurine—as enchanted and calm as all the victims had been, he realized—he asked, “Why?”

  The bad man smiled. The creases that formed at the edges of his mouth made him look old. “You are the one I have been looking for,” he said. He stroked Brandon’s hair across his forehead like a parent fussing over his son’s appearance in church.