Stolen, his paranoid amygdala countered. You know it was stolen. Don't be obtuse.

He knocked on the glass. Inside, a security guard he didn't recognize rose from a chair behind the desk and looked at him quizzically. Martin pointed at the maglock and the guard shrugged indifferently. The door clicked, and Martin pushed his way inside.

"You live in the building?" the guard asked. He was mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, with a diamond crucifix earring that seemed oddly out of place against his grizzled face.

"Savage, Martin."

The guard looked it up on the terminal.

"That's a nice earring."

The guard looked up, seemingly mystified, then grinned sheepishly. "Got it pierced in the service. I lost the stud the other day. Thought I'd keep it from closing up with one of my granddaughter's."

"It's a good look."

The guard chuckled. "Go on up, Mr. Savage. I'll buzz you through."

"Thanks."

The elevator doors opened as he approached. He thumbed the button for his floor. As the doors closed, he saw the guard look up expectantly. Martin waved, and the man gave him an amiable nod.

His condo was done in a spartan style, all chrome and eggshell-white plastic and black leather. He'd never been much on interior design, and let the man he'd hired do pretty much whatever, even hang the wire chandelier Martin hated that looked like a bright, fuzzy ball over the dining room table.

He sat on the sofa and watched the news, eating breakfast for dinner, until a story came on about Barclay's escape. Then he turned off the TV and went to the liquor cabinet. Poured a generous glass of bourbon and took it to bed.

It was early still, but after the morning sex, the long drive, the scare at the bookstore and another on the road, he felt okay about crashing before the evening news.

The tour had been short, but had taken its toll. He wasn't a salesman by nature. The job required it, but he found it draining. Faking geniality all day took a lot out of him, yet another thing he had in common with the killers he wrote about.

He was under the covers, getting toasty warm, when something he'd noticed but hadn't had the mental fortitude to process came back to him like a kick in the guts.

As he'd entered the condo he'd dropped his keys, kicked off his boots and struggled out of his jacket, but he hadn't paid attention to the objects on the side table by the door.

The mail to be redirected. The bills to be paid. The little dish he'd put there for pocket change, the pen left in it. The book.

Not simply a book: The Book.

He flipped the covers off and jumped out of bed, crossed the plush shag rug to the long, white hall with its bare walls—so unlike the homes he'd shared with his aunt Norma, even with his mother before she'd lost her mind, covered with photographs and paintings—and out into the living area.