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Several considerations, however, had prevented him from doing just that. The most significant concern being, What if they’re just passing through? What if he got there to find that his wife and children had already moved on? And how would he go about finding them in the first place? Would he wander the streets asking people in English—the only language he spoke—whether they’d seen an American mother with two boys fitting Joel’s and Thomas’s descriptions? Tampico was a tourist destination. How many families vacationing there fit that exact picture? No, it wouldn’t work. He’d needed something more to go on.

For the time being, therefore, he had decided to wait, imagining that since Susan had sent him one postcard advising him of their whereabouts, more were sure to follow. Six weeks passed without further contact. Each day he’d stalk the mailbox, certain that this would be the day, and each day his heart would sicken with despair when he rummaged through the bills, catalogs, and assorted junk mail to find… nothing.

Then one day it came. A second postcard. On the front was a picture of a large pyramidal relic, above it the name El Tajín. Entering the name into an electronic search engine on his desktop computer identified it as a famous archeological site to the north of Veracruz, Mexico, along the Gulf of Mexico some 250 miles south of Tampico. They had moved on. This time, he decided, he would go after them.

Another concern had worried him, though. Would he be followed? Both the Sheriff’s Department and the FBI had been keeping tabs on him since Susan had taken the boys and run. If he suddenly purchased a ticket to Mexico, it was likely that someone in law enforcement would know about it. Traveling by car would be better, he decided one evening, a large map of the United States and Mexico sprawled on the kitchen table in front of him. He sat back to ponder the details, absently running his hand across the top of Alex’s broad head. Suddenly, he realized something else he hadn’t considered. What would he do about the dog? On the one hand, Alex was the only family he had left, the only one who hadn’t deserted him. On the other hand, traveling with a 180-pound Great Dane was not exactly the best way to keep a low profile. Finding accommodating hotels would be a persistent problem, and he doubted whether he’d even be allowed to bring the dog across the border. Eventually, he’d turned to the only person he felt he could trust with the responsibility.

“No problem, Dr. S. You leave that glandular freak to me.”

“I may be gone for a while, Nat. I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back. Are you sure you can handle—”

“You leave me a good supply of beer and keep payin’ the electric bills, and you can take a six-month trip to China, as far as I’m concerned.”

There was something else to discuss. The postcard from Villahermosa had come only a week after the last one, as if Susan and the boys had to leave their prior location unexpectedly. Ben could think of several possible reasons for their hurried relocation, but the one that kept surfacing in his mind involved his oldest son, a long sharp object, and the remains of yet another mutilated body discovered in his wake. In his mind, he could see the gaping holes left behind—flesh torn away by human teeth—and he wondered to himself once more: What sort of creature am I chasing? And what will I do when I find it? Then Nat’s voice was pulling him back to the moment.

“Yo, Dr. S. You still with me?” Nat searched his face with eyes that did not yet seem to understand that the world is full of predators, and that they are often much closer than we allow ourselves to believe.

Ben pulled the first postcard from his back pocket, the one from Tampico. “I need to ask you another favor,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m expecting some additional correspondence from the same friend who sent me this.” He handed Nat the postcard. “If any more of these show up in the mail”—he tapped the card with his index finger—“I need to know about it. I’ll call you periodically to check in with you.”

Nat looked up at him skeptically. “A friend is sending you these.”

Ben nodded slowly. He felt stupid for taking this chance—he was making himself incredibly vulnerable—but it was the only way he would know if they moved on again. He had to trust someone, and strangely, that someone turned out to be this lanky twenty-two-year-old standing in front of him.

“And I imagine you wouldn’t want me to mention anything about this friend to, say… Chief Garston, for example.”

Ben’s face remained flat, devoid of expression—or so he hoped. “Chief Garston would not be interested in this friend, Nat. I wouldn’t bother him with it.”

“No,” Nat agreed. “I can’t imagine bothering him with stuff like that.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, unable to recall a time when he’d uttered those words with greater sincerity. He had begun to leave, but what Nat said next made him pause in mid-stride.

“’Bout time you went looking for them.”

Ben turned and looked back at his assistant. “Is it?”

Nat’s face was still, his eyes clear and earnest. “I would,” he responded.

“And when you found them?” Ben asked. “What then?”

Nat shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess I’d try to bring them home.”

“I don’t think he’s salvageable,” Ben said. “He won’t stop. More innocent people will die because of him.”

“Maybe there’s nothing you can do about him then,” Nat mused, “and maybe there is. But there’s more to this situation than just Thomas. This is about what’s best for all of you. Isn’t it?”

54

She opened her eyes in the dark, the fragments of a dream she could not quite remember slipping from her shoulders like a tattered shawl. Something had awakened her—a dog in the street, perhaps, yapping incessantly into the predawn hours. She listened. There was scratching to her right near the large dresser she shared with Ben. Alex must have entered their room last night, pushing the door open with the top of his head, curling up on the floor beside them. She should get up and let him out. She should—

A chair shifted near the corner of the room, and she froze, her eyes straining to penetrate the darkness. Someone is in here with us. Someone had broken into the house and… no… that wasn’t quite right. Where was she? She forced herself to wake up more completely, to push herself the last few inches to the surface, and as she did the reality of her situation came tumbling back in on her—a nightmare that was not a nightmare at all, but rather the nightmarish truth of her existence. A phone call from a neighbor (“There’re a bunch of cop cars sitting in your driveway”)… a hasty stop at the bank to withdraw as much cash as possible… a frantic car ride across the desert… the tense, heart-pounding moments at the border crossing… and now… a motel room, in a city she could barely recall. And how many others before this? How many days spent etching out the terms of their survival in the thin veil of anonymity, how many nights spent lying on a dilapidated mattress in a run-down motel room as the paint peeled imperceptibly from the walls of their lives and she wondered how much more of this she could stand?