He dashed around the house, smiling through his tears even though he knew.

Oh-you-little-bastard …

He jumped the driveway gate, rounded the corner, and saw Ripley still standing next to Bart's inert form. Somehow, it seemed he had known it was her calling all along.

'Daddy, I'm scared!' she bawled.

Thomas knelt before her, tried to grasp her gently, but his hands shook too violently.

'Sh-shush, sweetie…' he hissed.

'Where's Frankie, Daddy? Where'd he go?'

Thomas stood, pressed both palms against his brows.

This-isn't-happening-this-isn't-happening…

'FRANKIE!' he howled.

He couldn't stand. He fell to his knees.

He could hear Ripley crying, feel Mia shake his shoulders, though he had difficulty recognizing his face. Frankie… Neil had his son.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE

The following days were a fog of horror. Nothing was real.

Sam, Thomas could tell, was torn between consoling him and doing everything possible to find Frankie. The Evidence Response Team descended on his home once again, doing what Sam called a fingertip search of his backyard, combing the grass and the pup-tent for hairs, fibers, flakes of skin, anything, forensic or otherwise, that might constitute a 'clue'. It made Thomas nauseous just thinking of the word… Clue. How had something so silly, a trite Hollywood conceit, become the very hook from which, not today, not tomorrow, but hope itself now hung?

This couldn't be happening.

But it was. Thomas watched it from the den window, pacing back and forth, grabbing his hair and thumping his head against the wall. He even prayed—something he had never done even as a child. Please God and all that bullshit. Undo what you've wrought, motherfucker. He watched the technicians stump through the grass, laughing at unheard jokes, rubbing their backs when they got sore. And all the while, Bart just laid there, like an oil-stain in the heart of a tacky carpet. They didn't remove his body until late afternoon. Thomas had cried then, wept for his dog. It hollowed him out, gouged him so deeply he thought he might stop breathing, were it not for Frankie, and the…

Possibility.

Word wasn't long in coming. No clues, aside from a superficial match from what seemed to be several of Neil's hairs. DNA confirmation would come tomorrow. The family dog, some genius determined, had been killed at close range by a gunshot to the head.

Case closed. Time for dinner and a handjob.

Sam and Gerard, meanwhile, had canvassed the surrounding neighborhood, searching for potential witnesses. No one saw anything. Of three 'strange' vehicles reported—a black Toyota, a white van, and an aging Ford Explorer—two of them, the van and the Explorer, checked out. The Toyota was too generic to be of much use.

Sam was almost in tears when she came to his door late that evening. 'Sorry, professor,' she said. 'Tom…'