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approached, quickly stood, and handed over the laptop. Dandridge sat on the tech's former perch and the others gathered around to watch. The tech offered one of the bagged tins from the pile, upon which several numbers and letters had been scratched.
    "We suspect the top number is the victim's chronological order," the tech said. "The numbers below it are the month and day. No year. And there's still some debate, but I'm pretty sure the letters on the bottom line are abbreviations for vernal and autumnal equinox, and summer and winter solstice."
    "How do I make this thing play?" Dandridge asked.
    "It's already primed. You just have to double-click the file name."
    Ordinarily, this was where the tech would not-so-discreetly mock his inferior technical skills, but tonight, no one envied him the task at hand.
    Dandridge did as he was instructed and the media player opened. After a moment, a gray rectangle with a control bar beneath it appeared.
    He drew a deep breath to steady his nerves, aligned the cursor with the PLAY button, and tapped the mouse.
    The video began to roll.

    II
    Evergreen, Colorado

    Preston imported the photograph into his image enhancement program and magnified it to the limits of its resolution, searching for anything that might provide a clue to the child's location. A bookcase next to the bed displayed the spines of young adult novels without any library stickers or other distinguishable markings. The poster beside it was of the Jonas Brothers, another of Hannah Montana was cropped at the edge of the picture by the pink curtains drawn back from the window. Either a night light or a digital clock produced a weak glow from the opposite side. The comforter was a uniform peach color and the bed appeared to be a standard-issue single. With her eyes closed and her bangs obscuring her features, he couldn't ascertain a single identifiable characteristic beyond hair color, and whatever subtle hue existed was attenuated by darkness.
    "There has to be something here," he said. Why else would it have been sent to him before the fact? He had already checked the wire, and there had been no abductions within the last twenty-four hours, nor had any of the recent victims matched the pathetic description he had been able to generate: Caucasian female; blonde hair; approximate age of ten to twelve years old; eye color, height, and weight all indeterminate.
    He sharpened the contrast and scooted back from the screen. The photograph had been taken from roughly two feet away from the window, and at an angle in order to peer around the partially-drawn drapes. Further manipulation of contrast and resolution allowed him to scrutinize the reflection on the glass from what appeared to be a streetlamp behind the photographer. He could clearly see the reflection of the camera, and the dark silhouette of the man holding it to his face: slumped shoulders, unkempt hair above a long face, ears with sagging lobes. No other details were readily apparent, as though the man existed in a perpetual state of shadow.
    Preston could see the cut of the asphalt as a vague reflection, the hint of green from the lawn on the opposite side of the street at the foot of a dark, ranch-style house with a sedan parked in the driveway. It could have been any street in any neighborhood. He studied the periphery of the image. To one side, the reflection of a purple crabapple tree with white blossoms. To the other, a deciduous hedgerow.
    "Damn it!" he shouted, knocking over the chair in his hurry to stand.
    He had to be missing something.
    After pacing the kitchen with his palms pressed against his forehead for several minutes, he righted the chair and sat in front of the monitor once again. He zoomed in as tightly as he could on the reflection of the house across the street, a ghost of an image through which he could see the outline of the small girl's shoulder under the bundle of blankets. There was no address on the house or the mailbox, at least that he