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the dreamer. I’ve read case histories where the fantasy is played out in different ways, different terms. It always gets worse. Now I’m actually seeing it happen, right here on my watch. I know he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. And he won’t stop after that, because he’ll want it again. And again. And again.
    Moe sat beside me for a while, alert, then groaned and lay down and fell asleep. When I started back the moon was gone and there was a damp breeze coming from the west with the smell of the ocean in it. As I picked my way down the trail I wondered what it would be like to tell Melinda I was going to leave her, and if I could do it.

T HREE
     
    I was at my desk by six-thirty, third cup of coffee going, rereading the note of thanks from Donna Mason over at CNB. It was in my e-mail. I got rid of that one fast—I don’t like my fellows here aware of my doings with the media. It can be a perilous business and I like to keep it to myself.
    I was waiting for the call from Special Agent Mike Strickley of the Investigative Support Unit in Quantico. I’d met him eight years ago at an FBI “road school”—training sessions for law enforcement that the then Behavioral Sciences Unit offered to local law enforcement. He’d told me to call them if I ever needed them. After the second girl, Courtney, I knew we had a serial offender and made the call. I sent him the photographs of both girls, their statements, videotapes of the release sites and the forensic evidence we’d culled. That was eight days ago, and Mike had faxed me yesterday morning to say he’d be ready today.
    I was pondering another angle on how The Horridus was picking his victims. They were both fair-skinned, light-haired anglos. One with blond hair; one with red. They were ages five and six. They both lived with their single mothers except for occasional weekends with their fathers. They both had ground-floor bedrooms with windows not visible from the street. They both lived in Orange County, though he’d taken Pamela in Orange, which is central county, while for Courtney he’d gone south to San Clemente, near the San Diego County line. They were both abducted, held, then released wearing different clothes, with the aforementioned mesh robes and black velvet hoods. No signs of physical abuse other than light bruising on the upper extremities. No penetration, no bruising, no bleeding. No blood, skin or saliva left on them. No semen. They’d both been found with silver 3M duct tape cinched over their mouths. Acetate and wool/rayon blend fibers on the tape suggested that he carried it on his body somewhere, already stripped off, so as not to make any noise rasping it off the roll. He used a different shirt or jacket each time, a new or almost new one, to transfer as little evidence about himself as possible. He named himself for Courtney: written in felt pen on the inside of the tape over her mouth was the word, Horridus.
    But I hadn’t found the link between the girls that he had found. Age. Race. Single-parent households. Ground-floor windows away from the street. How did he know? We had checked, rechecked and checked again for the connection between the girls, the common plane along which he was hunting them. Different cities. Different schools. Different day care. Different friends, parks, pools, shopping places. Different worlds and different lives. But somewhere their lives came together, and it was my job to find that place and be there the next time he hunted it.
    Strickley called at six forty-five and apologized for the early hour. I told him I hadn’t been sleeping well anyway. We made small talk for about thirty seconds.
    “I’ve looked over the material you sent me, and this is what I think. I’ll be faxing this out to you when we’re done, so you’ve got a hard copy, but I’m going to run it by you fast right now.”
    “I’m ready.”
    “Let me tell you something, Terry, you’ve got a genuine problem on your hands.