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in the direction of Charleston. Traffic was light, and he reached the city in forty minutes. He wasn’t really in a hurry, but the absence of highway patrol officers encouraged his lead foot. He tried his best not to think about the empty brownstone waiting for him in Georgetown or the jasmine and lilac scent of Priya’s perfume still clinging to the bedsheets.
    Merging onto I-95, Thomas found a classical music station on the radio and ignored the speed limit. The Audi was as quiet at eighty-five miles an hour as it was at fifty-five. Around noon, he stopped for gas and remembered he hadn’t eaten breakfast. At the recommendation of the station attendant, he bought a pulled pork sandwich from a local greasy spoon and drove half a mile to the Cape Fear Botanical Gardens. By midday, the air had warmed sufficiently to allow for alfresco dining.
    He parked in the visitors’ lot and entered the gardens on foot. The place was idyllic—lush with foliage. A few couples were out walking, an elderly man was throwing rice to a family of pigeons, and a blond woman in a hat was snapping pictures of a man in sunglasses beneath an oak tree. Not far away, a young mother and a girl about ten years old were heading down a path toward the Children’s Garden. Thomas watched the girl run ahead of her mother and felt a familiar ache inside. When Priya was pregnant, he had a dream of Mohini taking her first steps at Rock Creek Park. It was one of so many hopes dashed by the little girl’s death.
    He walked to a gazebo in the middle of a grassy field and took a seat on the steps. He watched as mother and daughter disappeared into a stand of evergreen trees. Soon the woman with the camera lost interest in photographing her companion and turned her attention to the flora. Shutter clicking, lens tracing random arcs across the scene, she meandered toward the path to the Children’s Garden, her male friend trailing after her.
    Thomas took out his sandwich and began to eat. He watched the clouds drifting lazily in the jet stream and relished the tranquility of the place. After a while, he looked out across the grass and saw that the elderly man had taken a seat on a bench at the edge of the trees. Everyone else had disappeared. For a moment, all was serene. The air was still, the forest unperturbed, and the December sun hung like a lantern from the sky.
    Then, in an instant, the silence was shattered by a scream.
    Thomas put down his meal and stood up. The scream came again. It was a woman’s voice, coming from the direction of the Children’s Garden. His decision was instinctive. In seconds he was running down the path toward the trees. There was no doubt in his mind. The scream had something to do with the girl.
    He entered the forest at top speed. The path was lonely and dark beneath the evergreen boughs. He emerged from the trees to see the young mother doubled over in the midst of an empty meadow. She was clutching her stomach with one hand and her face with the other, repeating a name over and over again—Abby.
    Thomas looked around.
    The girl was gone.
    He ran to the woman and knelt down. Her cheek was livid with the beginnings of a nasty bruise. She looked at him with wild eyes.
    â€œPlease!” she rasped. “They took her! They took my Abby! Help me! ”
    Thomas’s heart lurched. “ Who did?” he demanded, scanning the trees again.
    â€œA woman with a camera,” she gasped, trying to stand up. “And two men. One of them came up behind me.” She motioned toward the trees separating them from the parking lot. “They went that way! Do something! Please! ”
    At that moment, an engine gunned and Thomas heard the sound of tires churning upon gravel. He hesitated only a second before leaping to his feet and running into the forest. Branches stung his face, and he stumbled on a fallen limb, but he didn’t break his stride. He could think of only one thing—the