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groan, tearing up the stairs two at a time.
      “Kate?” he shouted. That was her name—Kate Harris.
      Ripping through the bedrooms upstairs, John found himself formulating a usable description of the woman. Five foot six, slim, straight brown hair, odd stone-colored eyes, gray coat, black shoes, something to help the cops find her—his blood turned cold as he realized what he was doing. Knowing himself becoming, in that instant, the father of a missing girl…

Chapter 3
     
      John felt the chill of cold truth. Searching his own house, the feeling grew stronger: Was he one of them now? One of those parents—loved ones who came home one bright day to find the nightmare starting—those parents he knew so well from witness lists and cross-examination—parents who had lost their children? Was he on the after side of a before-and-after life? The before-Maggie-was-missing and the after-Maggie-was-missing life?
      “MAGGIE!” he bellowed.
      The house responded in silence.
      John thought of the Moores, the Nastoses, the McDiarmids, the Litskys…they had gone through this; he had heard them testify to it: “I came home from work, and she wasn’t there…” or, “We called her on Friday night, but she didn’t answer…” or, “We searched and searched, but we couldn’t find her.” They had somehow opened the door to the monsters—
      “Maggie! Kate!” he yelled.
      Kate Harris! A plain name, a nice, normal-looking woman. John felt the stab—the standard description of a serial killer. “Seemed so nice , seemed so normal …” The boy next door…But women killed too, he thought. Women were not exempt from the inner forces that drove people to harm others.
      Where had Kate Harris taken his baby girl? His sweet little stubborn little soccer-shirt-wearing bath-forgetting beloved daughter…Maggie. Margaret Rose O’Rourke. Maggie Rose. Mags, Magpie, Maguire, Magsamillion, the Magster.
      “Maggie!”
      Up to the attic. Smells of dust, mothballs, something dead rotting in the walls—the bats were back, John thought. They’d had bats three years ago, and Theresa had called an exterminator. His throat caught, thinking of his wife.
      Another before-and-after, he thought. The before-the-accident, the after-the-accident. How best to define the moment his life first fell apart? Too frantic to think, John raced through the musty attic, looking in the old wardrobe, behind the cedar chest, inside Theresa’s grandmother’s leather-bound trunk.
      He let out a sound so inhuman—the relief of not finding his daughter’s body mixed with the anguish of not finding his daughter—that it flushed the bats from the rafters and brought them swarming around his head. They surrounded him with dark, translucent violence, scratching his ears and face with something shockingly sharp—claws? Teeth?
      John didn’t know. He ran down the stairs, wedging himself through the door and slamming it behind him. One or two bats escaped the attic, dispersing into the bright vastness of the colonial house’s second floor.
      He still had the basement to search: his workshop, the laundry room. The garage, the garden shed, the boathouse. But he didn’t have time; minutes were flying by, and he already knew.
      This is it , he thought, going for the phone in his bedroom. This is it, this is the moment. Payback for your career, payback for defending the people you defend.
      Does it mean they’re right—you’re a demon doing the devil’s work, that you’re a party to the crimes after the fact, that you should just let the killers fry? Is that what this means?
      My daughter’s missing, just like those other families.
      Now I know what it’s like , he thought, starting to dial. Now I know.
      John sat on the bed. He picked up the receiver. It felt slippery in his hand. Fingers shaking, he went to punch the buttons and hit air instead. Trying again, he dialed the 91 of 911, when he heard the front door open.