Ripley swung from his arm as though it were a swimming-hole rope as they turned into the office. She raced ahead to fetch her pencils and books, plopping stomach-first in the middle of the floor. He paused at the doorway, absently studied the great poster of the earth on the far wall.

Neil had loved the thing. He would stand in front of it, his profile turned so that Florida dangled like an obscene goblin dick from his fly, and call out: 'Nora! Ever been to Disney World?'

'Too many times,' she would answer.

Haw-fucking-haw. How many winks had they traded between them? Neil and Nora… Thomas wondered how long he'd be rewriting his history. He'd be bled white before it was done, he knew that much.

'Verbal,' he said, settling before the computer. 'Class files… Starting from about, ah, five years ago.'

Columns of folder icons unfolded across the screen. Thomas peered at them, looking for likely suspects.

'Ten years!' Ripley yelled with a giggle. Everything onscreen flickered out, instantaneously replaced. Thomas scowled at his daughter. She played innocent, smiling down at a blob of poppy red.

'Little bitch,' he muttered with a smile. A 'REPEAT REQUEST' window popped onto the screen.

'Starting from five years ago,' Thomas said.

He studied the icons for a moment. It had to be one of the bigger classes, he decided, the ones he and his colleagues jokingly called the 'hatcheries', where teaching played second fiddle to wowing freshmen into becoming psych majors.

'Open Intro 104a 2010,' he said.

A list of folders, each with a student's name, appeared. He scanned through them.

Nothing.

'Open Intro 104b 2011.'

Again he scanned down the list. Two-thirds the way down, his heart stopped at:

POWSKI, CYNTHIA 792-11-473

She had been his student.

Which meant he had been linked to all of them—all of Neil's victims.

He had once voted for Peter Halasz, had once participated in a pro-labor demonstration against Theodoros Gyges, and had argued several times with Nora over one of Jackie Forrest's books. He supposed he'd never made the link because of the tenuousness of these relationships. They seemed random. Meaningless.

But then this morning it had dawned on him: perhaps that was the point. Neil's point.

Only Cynthia Powski had seemed to argue against it.

'Display Cynthia Powski.'

A youthful, innocent version of her face materialized on the screen. Though motionless, it seemed to lean back, eyes fluttering, lips curling…

He pushed his chair back on its rollers, ran both hands across his scalp.

'Dad?' Ripley asked. 'Will Sam be coming over tonight?'

Ripley liked Sam. She adored anyone who treated her like a little adult.

'I'm not sure, honey,'