The fourth booth came up empty, and the fifth. Tim turned his face partway toward me and gave a small shake of his head.

An overwhelming hopelessness enveloped me then, a sense of failure and loss so intense it left me weak in the knees. I clamped my hand against the back of the nearest bench to steady myself. What now? Where would I go from here?

“Shana.”

The flutter in Tim’s voice whipped my head in his direction. He and Mac had reached the last booth. There, cowering in the far corner of the bench like a feral animal, was Trey Hayes.

“Jesus Christ,” Mac said under her breath. Only one side of his face was visible, a single round eye and a cheek streaked with snot and tears. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

I said, “Hey, Trey. We’re with the police. Everything’s going to be okay.”

The boy tried to make himself even smaller. He wouldn’t look at me straight on.

“Are you hurt?” The trauma this kid had been through, my God. Bram had torn Trey’s innocence from him like a strip of flesh. I knew his mouth must be aching from where Bram pried out the tooth, but I sensed there was something more to the child’s pain. Very slowly I reached toward him, and after a while, Trey put his small, cold hand in mine. Tim’s flashlight beam caught his face, and when the kid inched toward me, I sucked in a breath and had to swallow hard to keep from retching. A gash, long and wide, on the side of his face. A wound that would become a scar exactly like mine.

I looked down at Trey. I wouldn’t let his disfigurement be in vain. This boy had been held captive by a killer, and like me, he’d survived. I’d learned a lot about Bram during those days, about his distrust of family, his malevolence toward women. He was a talker, always had been.

That meant Trey might hold the key to catching him.

“You must be freezing,” I said. Though I was shaking, I took off my jacket and enveloped him in my warmth. “It’s all right now. We’ve got you. But I need to ask you something. The man who took you. Do you know where he is?”

Trey shook his head, hard and fast.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

He burrowed into my jacket and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “It’s okay, Trey. Hey, Mac.”

“Yeah?”

“You got your wish.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

The day Robbie Copely is scheduled to be arraigned at Burlington’s Costello Courthouse, I get to the station early. I make a pot of coffee for Solomon and Bogle and admire their decorating skills. With days to go until Thanksgiving, my investigators tired of waiting for the holidays and made a run to the local hardware store. Garlands of blinking lights are strung chaotically over the windows. Snowflakes and holly-shaped jelly decals have been slapped against the glass. Their efforts give the office a festive air, but they also remind me of a preschool where the kids are in charge of the ornaments.