Ignoring her, Sebastian went on. “The man who took him was afraid. You could smell it. He took him to a woman somewhere … East.” It would come. “And she dressed him in Oshkosh overalls and a red-striped shirt. He was in a car seat and had a ring of plastic keys to play with. They drove most of the day, then stopped at a motel. It had a dinosaur out front. She fed him, bathed him, and when he cried she walked him until he fell asleep.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Utah.” He frowned a little. “Arizona, maybe, but probably Utah. The next day they drove, still southeast. She’s not afraid.

It’s just business. They go to a mall—someplace in Texas. East Texas. It’s crowded. She sits on a bench. A man sits beside her. He leaves an envelope on the bench and pushes David away in his stroller.

“The same routine the following day. David’s tired of traveling and bewildered by all the strange faces. He wants home. He’s taken to a house. A big stone house with old, leafy trees in the yard. South. It feels like Georgia. He’s given to a woman who holds him and cries a little, and a man who holds them both. He has a room there, with blue sailboats on the wall and a mobile over the crib of circus animals. They call him Eric now.”

Mel was very pale when she managed to speak. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, but there’s a part of you that wonders if you should. Forget what you think of me, Mel. Think of David.”

“I am thinking of David.” She sprang to her feet, the sketch clutched in her hand. “Give me a name, then. Give me a damn name.”

“Do you think it works like that?” he tossed back. “Demand and answer? It’s an art, not a pop quiz.”

She let the sketch float back to the desk. “Right.”

“Listen to me.” He slapped his hands down on the desk, hard enough to make her jolt in reaction. “I’ve been in Chicago for three weeks, watching some monster slice people to ribbons in my head. Feeling his glee while he did it. Using up everything I am, everything I have, to find him before he could do it again. If I’m not working fast enough to suit you on this, Sutherland, that’s too damn bad.”

She backed off. Not because she was afraid of this sudden burst of temper. Because she saw something in his face, some trace of his weary horror at what he’d been through.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Here are the facts. I don’t believe in psychics or witches or things that go bump in the night.”

He had to smile. “You’ll have to meet my family sometime.”