He wanted to remember the look on her twelfth birthday, when he had saved all his money to take her horseback riding for the day, because they weren’t the kind of family that could ever afford a pony.

And he wanted to believe that the morning of his eighteenth birthday, when she had woken up and discovered his room once again empty, that she hadn’t cried, that she hadn’t missed him. That he hadn’t broken his little sister’s heart all over again.

Because he was getting an education these days. He was learning that to be the family of the missing person was in its own way just as terrible as being the missing person. He was learning that living with so many questions was harder than being the person who had all the answers.

And he was learning that deep in his heart, he was terrified that the Burgerman was still alive and well. Somehow, some way, the monster from Jason’s youth had returned to take his family from him.

Jason paced for another ten minutes. Or maybe it was twenty or thirty. Clock was ticking, each minute inching toward another morning without his wife.

Max would return.

The police as well.

And more press. Cable news shows now. The likes of Greta Van Susteren and Nancy Grace. They would apply their own kind of pressure. A beautiful wife missing for days. The dark mysterious husband with a shady past. They’d crack open his life for the world to see. And somewhere in Georgia, some people would connect some dots and place phone calls of their own….

Then both Max and the police would have real ammunition to take his daughter from him. How long did he have? Noon? Two o’clock? Maybe they’d break the story just in time to headline the five o’clock cycle. That would score them ratings. Some news anchorman would see his star soar.

And Jason … How in the world would he ever say goodbye to his daughter?

Worse, what would happen to her? Her mother gone, now dragged away from the only father she had ever known … Daddy, Daddy, Daddy …

He had to think. He had to move.

Sandy was pregnant.

He needed to do something.

Couldn’t access his computer. Couldn’t confront Ethan Hastings. Couldn’t run. What to do? What to do?

It came to him, shortly after two A.M.: his last course of action.

It would involve leaving his daughter, sleeping alone upstairs. In four years, he’d never done such a thing. What if she woke up? Found the house once again empty and started screaming hysterically?