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  Julia was ten, just a little older than CariAnne, when her mother died. Her father tried to make Julia’s life as normal as possible and she absolutely adored Luc Racine for his efforts, but something broke inside Julia the day her mother left. She knew that then, although she didn’t understand it. But she had felt it, like fabric that had tugged and stretched then ripped at the seams. It had been a pain, an ache so real, so palpable that as a little girl she truly believed something— her stomach, her intestines, her heart—had surely been torn.

  Her father claimed that one day she was climbing trees and the next day she was pulling up a chair to the kitchen sink to wash dishes, trying to do her mother’s chores herself.

  “It just wasn’t natural,” Luc would finish off the story. Although these days Alzheimer’s prevented him from remembering his own daughter at times, let alone remembering that story or his long-gone wife.

  Perhaps Julia’s lack of maternal instinct really did come from not having a real childhood. For years she blamed it for her inability to sustain a normal relationship. Only recently had it occurred to her that it might have something to do with playing on the wrong team. So here she was, trying again. Really trying this time. If someone was keeping track she should get mega points for this—picking up Miss Sticky Fingers from school and having to wait in the principal’s office for approval.

  Needing to get the proper approval, even though her partner had filled out all the necessary forms, didn’t bother her. As a police detective, Julia appreciated rules that protected kids from perverts. It certainly made Julia’s job easier. But there was something about waiting for the principal, no matter what age you were, that was unsettling.

  She glanced at the large institutional-size clock on the wall. Must be standard issue. Julia remembered a similar one from her elementary-school days. And she had spent plenty of time outside the principal’s office back then. Even as a kid she hadn’t had patience. Being too grownup at age ten—or at age thirty-one—didn’t seem to stop her from telling her peers how stupid they were. Except now that she wore a gun they tended to not argue back as often.

  A woman came rushing into the outer office. She knocked on the principal’s door but didn’t wait for an answer before she opened it.

  “I counted sixty-three lined up for the nurse,” she said, staying in the doorway. “That doesn’t count those still in the restrooms.”

  A voice answered from inside but Julia couldn’t make out what was said. The woman’s head swiveled around, only now noticing Julia and CariAnne. She stepped inside the office and the door slammed shut.

  Julia tugged her hand away from the little girl and quietly got up to glance outside the door. A line of kids snaked around the corner. Some were holding their bellies. Others were leaning against the wall. A few adults manned the line, feeling foreheads and offering whispered reassurances.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Julia asked CariAnne.

  “A lot of us haven’t been feeling good since lunchtime.”

  “You don’t feel good? You didn’t say anything?”

  “I don’t usually have to. Mom just knows.”

  Julia looked back out the door, thinking they sure had everything under control for all these kids not feeling good. But then all it took was one to start vomiting. The little boy barely made it to the trash can. Watching from the sidelines, Julia thought it looked like dominoes, one kid after another, bending, gagging, retching and the few adults like tops spinning from one end of the hallway to the other.

  It was almost funny until Julia heard CariAnne behind her. The little girl was reaching for her hand again, holding her stomach, and pressing against Julia. In seconds she, too, was bent over and spraying Julia’s shoes.

  TWENTY-ONE

  NEBRASKA

  Even without the barbed wire Maggie thought Dawson Hayes still looked fragile in the stark, white hospital bed. She felt an odd connection to him and couldn’t shake how his eyes had pleaded with her, depended on her.

  This morning his arms were wrapped in blood-stained bandages. An IV tube snaked from the back of his hand to a machine. She and the sheriff were told that a gastrointestinal tube had been removed from his throat so he might be a bit hoarse. And that they shouldn’t push him to talk too much.

  The scratches on his face looked raw against his pale skin. The bandage on his neck hid a wound that seeped. But the thing that bothered Maggie most was that the boy still looked scared.

  Sheriff Skylar had insisted he direct the interviews with the teenagers. They were kids from his area. He knew many of their parents. They’d feel more comfortable talking to someone they knew rather than a state patrolman or an FBI agent. She agreed, letting him believe that in doing so, he had won a major concession, when in fact, Maggie didn’t actually have official approval to proceed as lead investigator.

  She had left a message for her boss, Assistant Director Raymond Kunze, but she hadn’t heard back from him yet. She already knew what he’d say: “Hand it off to the locals. You have a conference to attend.”

  The “locals,” Maggie had discovered in the meantime, would be either the FBI field office in Omaha, two hundred and eighty miles away, or the Forest Service in Chadron, which was two hundred miles away. Kunze wouldn’t comprehend that distance, nor would he care what difference losing the first twenty-four hours could make.

  Besides, detouring her to visit the site of a cattle mutilation was, no doubt, only a favor he had been repaying, one of those courtesies that government officials gave each other. Maggie suspected Kunze hadn’t intended for her to give any of it more than a cursory look and write the obligatory report that would be his proof of repayment. If he had intended for her to actually create a possible profile of the cattle mutilators, he certainly would have included many more of the details in the file.

  Truth was, it didn’t matter. Maggie didn’t want the case. She’d never been a lead investigator. Her job had always been to assist law enforcement agencies at their request. She was the outside observer, the specialist who could be objective and catch details that might otherwise be missed. She liked being the outsider.

  Earlier she’d decided to stay long enough to make sure as many pieces of the investigation—especially the collecting and processing of evidence, including witness accounts— was placed in the hands of officials who could properly take over.

  So she didn’t argue with Sheriff Skylar.

  She didn’t like hospitals—who did? She wanted to be back at the crime scene. That’s where Donny Fergussen was. At Maggie’s request, he was meeting a State Patrol crime-scene unit. They’d go over the area again, widen the perimeter, cast several footprints, and collect any other remaining traces that the tarps hopefully had preserved. She would much rather be out there than with Sheriff Skylar. Witnesses were notoriously inaccurate, and a bunch of teens tripping out on salvia would probably be worthless narrators of what had happened last night in the forest.

  But Maggie wanted—no, she needed—to see that Dawson Hayes was okay.

  “Dawson, I’m Sheriff Skylar. Your dad used to work with me.”

  Maggie studied the boy’s face, watching for signs of recognition. If he knew the sheriff there was no relief in seeing him. Was he worried about being in trouble?

  Skylar didn’t wait. He pulled a chair from the corner and placed it beside the bed. As he sat down directly in the boy’s line of vision, he threw a thumb over his shoulder and said, “This is Agent O’Dell from the FBI.”

  Dawson’s eyes swung up to hers then darted back. It was enough for Maggie to see his panic was real now.

  She remained standing and stayed by the door where she could watch not only Dawson but Skylar as well. When Skylar told her he wanted to conduct the interviews, it was because the teenagers would be “less rattled” with someone they knew. So she was surprised when he began by saying, “We know about the Taser, son,” immediately putting the boy on the defensive.

  Earlier the sheriff couldn�
��t wait to tell her he had already traced the serial number on the Taser back to Dawson’s father who used it for his job as a security guard at a meat-processing plant outside of North Platte. Skylar had explained that the gun was standard issue at the plant and all he had to do was check their database. Possession of the Taser seemed to be Skylar’s smoking gun, so to speak, though there was no evidence it had caused any of the injuries.

  Maggie would quickly regret not changing the subject.

  “Did you shoot any of your friends with the gun, Dawson?”

  “No, absolutely not.”

  “Come on, Dawson. I know it was fired. You might just as well fess up. We’re going to find out the truth soon enough.”

  The boy’s eyes looked up at Maggie, to Skylar, then back to Maggie, staying with her for a beat longer, imploring her as though she might be the more understanding one.

  “I shot at … something,” he said.

  Instead of leaning in for the explanation, Skylar sat back and shook his head like he had heard this before and didn’t have the patience to hear it again.

  “So what was it you think you shot at?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t really get a good look. It had red eyes. Maybe a wolf.”

  Now Skylar jerked forward, surprised.

  “A wolf? You sure it wasn’t a coyote? Maybe a cougar? Hank said there’s a big cat of some sort in the forest. They’ve had sightings. But wolves? We haven’t had wolves in this area since I’ve been here.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it could have been a coyote or cougar. It was big. And white.”

  “White?” Skylar sat back and shook his head again. No longer interested. “A white wolf or cougar.”

  “It pounced at me. I shot at it. I’m pretty sure I hit it.”

  “There weren’t any animal tracks,” Skylar told him, his arms crossed over his chest.

  The sheriff wore a flannel shirt this morning, a black-andred plaid that somehow made him appear bigger. Maggie realized the sidearm strapped at his waist probably had something to do with the appearance, too. Last night she hadn’t seen any weapon under his jacket.

  The boy looked at Maggie again, but she had nothing to offer. There had been plenty of footprints all over the sandy floor of the forest but no animal tracks, at least none the size of a wolf or coyote or cougar. The pine needles could have disguised an animal’s presence, but a wounded animal would have certainly left prints.

  Then Maggie remembered. The girl named Amanda had been bitten on her arm. Could it have been an animal? What did she say about it? “He bit me.” Last night Maggie hadn’t thought to ask. It seemed a minor issue compared to the girl’s shock and the other teens’ injuries.

  “Dawson, I’m disappointed. I didn’t expect you to lie when two of your friends are dead.”

  “It’s true. It was watching from the brush when the fireworks were going off. It had red eyes.”

  “Fireworks. Right.”

  Last night, while they were being treated, some of the others had mumbled something about fireworks or a light show. Hank had been within a mile of the teenagers’ campsite and hadn’t seen any display, nothing close to fireworks or a laser-light show like the teens described. It could have been the salvia.

  At some point Maggie would need to fess up about the plastic bag Lucy had found. She was hoping to have it analyzed before handing it over with the other trace evidence. If Skylar had kept the existence of drugs a secret during a previous investigation, she wouldn’t risk him doing it again. She certainly didn’t expect any of the teenagers to offer up information about the drug.

  Perhaps Skylar read her mind.

  “What kind of drugs were you tripping on?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You kids might think I’m an old man, but I’m not stupid. I know you weren’t in the forest at dusk sitting around drinking soda pop. Not the first time you’ve been out there either, is it?”

  Maggie had to give the man some credit. Sometimes this type of interrogation opened a spigot when the subject felt guilty and just needed an extra push to spew out a confession or give up some vital information. But this would not be one of those moments. Maggie didn’t think Dawson Hayes looked guilty. He looked scared.

  When the boy met her eyes this time, his eyes stayed on her. She saw the panic soften and give way to a spark of recognition.

  “You’re the one who found me,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You should have just let me die with the others.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Organized chaos. That’s exactly what Benjamin Platt saw when he arrived at Fitzgerald Elementary School. Police officers with whistles guided a line of cars with disheveled parents picking up the last of the children. A group of what looked to be school administrators and teachers were helping paramedics escort children to waiting ambulances. The frenetic energy spilled across the street to bystanders and into the neighborhood where people watched from their front lawns.

  As Platt got out of his Land Rover a cable-TV camera crew started setting up. He recognized the well-dressed anchor-woman eyeballing him, trying to decide whether or not he was someone important. By the time he flashed his credentials at the first police officer, Platt could hear the newscaster calling out to him. Too late. He slid his messenger bag higher on his shoulder, strode on without a glance back.

  He made it up the steps before another uniformed cop stopped him.

  “Essentials only beyond this point, sir,” the cop told him.

  Before Platt could respond he heard a woman from inside the doorway say, “It’s okay. He’s been cleared.”

  Tall, lean, attractive but with a hard edge and a clenched jaw telegraphing don’t mess with me. Her short blond hair spiked up in places as if she had just come in from the wind, though there wasn’t a breeze. She wore street clothes: jeans with a tucked-in knit shirt tight across full breasts and a shoulder holster displaying her Glock nestled close underneath her arm, so that anyone who dared to admire her physique also got an eyeful of the metal, another warning not to mess with her. Her badge hung from her belt but Platt didn’t need to look at it. He recognized the District detective.

  “Hello, Detective Racine.”

  “CDC guy’s waiting for you. I’ll take you to him.”

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

  Not even five feet inside, Platt immediately smelled the sour vomit, splatters of it left on the floor. Otherwise the hallway was eerily quiet. Racine led the way, unfazed by the smell. Platt glanced into the empty classrooms. They rounded one corner and suddenly had to step aside for two men dressed in full SWAT gear.

  He waited for them to pass before he asked Racine, “What the hell’s going on? I thought this was a food contamination?”

  “Mr. CDC called in a domestic terrorism alert. Sixty-three kids puking up their cookies all in a matter of an hour. Tends to trip an alarm or two.”

  “Any fatalities?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Aren’t you homicide?”

  “Yes.”

  Platt stopped mid-stride to look at her.

  “I was already here,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Off duty. I was picking up my partner’s kid.”

  He started walking again. “Picking up your partner’s kid, that seems beyond the call of duty,” he said, trying to lighten the tone.

  “Not my professional partner. My personal partner.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t know what to do with that tidbit of information. In the few times he had met her at Maggie’s house, he hadn’t picked up on the fact that she was gay. He chose to not comment. “Does Bix know you were here when it started?”

  “Bix?”

  “The CDC guy.”

  “No. We’re here to secure the area. That’s all we bring to this party. He doesn’t much care what else we have to offer. FBI and Homeland Security
have people here.”

  Platt nodded. Sounded like Bix was getting all his ducks in a row, so to speak. But for a guy who wanted to keep things under wraps, he couldn’t be happy with the entourage of news media already setting up.

  Earlier when Roger Bix had called Platt he only doled out scraps of information but had been adamant that this school’s incident was, in fact, related to the one in Norfolk, Virginia. When Platt asked how exactly he knew they were connected and what new information pointed to that—after all, just last night Bix didn’t even know what had caused the contamination in Norfolk—Bix would only say, “I have it on indisputable authority that these two incidents are, indeed, related.”

  Obviously from the show of force Bix knew much more than he was willing to disclose. Platt wondered how the hell he could help if the man had already decided not to trust him.

  “When I finish with Mr. Bix I’d like to talk to you about what you saw,” Platt told Detective Racine as they turned another corner. “Would that be possible?”

  “Sure. I’m not going anywhere for a few hours.” She pointed to a doorway and added, “I’ll be out front.”

  She turned and left him. Even after she disappeared around the corner he could hear her heels echoing down the hall. The only other sound came from beyond the open door, hushed voices giving orders. One of which Platt already recognized.

  Two men in dark suits shouldered past Platt on their way out, leaving only three people in the small office. Bix had a cell phone pressed against his ear as he sat behind a desk with a nameplate that proclaimed it as Principal Barbara Stratton’s. Ms. Stratton, most likely, was the woman in a navy suit with long silver hair tied back. Platt wasn’t surprised to see the third person, Special Agent R. J. Tully.