“Well, she saw him leave. She saw a car pick him up.”

“A car? What kind of a car?”

“I don’t know. She was with her parents. They were shushing her and telling her she couldn’t be sure of what she saw. She’s only about five or six. The parents are terrified, thinking they could make themselves targets.”

“Can you point her out to me?” Katie asked.

Mabel pointed. It wasn’t easy to see, there were so many people milling about. But finally, behind them all, in front of a single-story shotgun house, she saw the family. It looked as if the young parents were watching the scene worriedly from the sanctity of their yard.

They both held a hand of their child, a little girl with red ringlets and a cherubic but serious face.

Katie pushed silently away from the car and made her way through gawking bystanders, saying “Excuse me,” over and over again. Glancing back, she saw she had managed to get away without the officer who was watching her even aware that she had left. But he wasn’t supposed to have been worried about her taking off, he was just supposed to make sure no one approached her and hurt her. But nothing was going to happen in a crowd that size.

She reached the family standing on their lawn and quickly introduced herself. She didn’t say she was a tour guide and carriage driver; she said she was working with the FBI. In a way, though she hadn’t been hired officially as a consultant, she figured it was true.

“We’re hoping someone saw the attacker as he was arriving or leaving. Any help, any idea, an inkling of anything might be useful,” she said. She knelt by the little girl and offered her a gentle smile. “You have beautiful hair,” she said.

“Thank you,” the little cherub said. “You have it, too,” she continued, smiling. “Like mine, it’s red!”

“Yes, I have red hair, too. Mine is a little darker, but we have the same hair!” Katie said.

“Miss... Agent... I’m sorry,” her father said. “We...we were just getting ready for the day, you know. Getting Margot here ready for school. Me, needing to head off to work, you know, and my wife was at the coffee machine—”

“I was at the window!” little Margot said. “He was a big black thing, like a giant bat, and he was heading down the street and he was picked up by a sleigh!”

“A sleigh?” Katie asked.

“A fancy, red sleigh, but with no reindeer,” Margot said.

“She’s just a child,” Margot’s mother said. “Please, this is all terribly upsetting! Margot needs to go now. Jubal, you need to take Margot and go—”

“Ooh. Like a flashy sports car?” Katie asked.

“Oh, yeah, maybe!”

“Red and sleek... Did you see who was driving it?” Katie asked.

Margot shook her head.