"Give me twenty minutes, and we'll bust out of here early." Jeremy dug through the teetering mound of papers on his desk.

"Don't worry about me." Emilie rubbed her pounding temples. She was too tired to care. She'd hardly slept, and when she did her dreams were of dark pa.s.sages full of crying children. They pleaded for help while an unknown woman screamed in the distance. Emilie had woken in terror just before dawn. She had been the one screaming and begging for her life.

"You never said anything about the tunnels."

"What did you want me to say?"

"How bad were they?"

She thought about the tattered baby doll. "Worse than I could have imagined."

"Good thing you didn't get a hair up your a.s.s and go in alone then."

"I don't know what I would have done if Nathan hadn't been there."

Jeremy scrawled a comment on the report she'd just given him. "He's good for you."

"He is."

Her phone vibrated. "Agent Ronson. Have you been able to release Claire's body?"

"No. But I've got some information from the Louisiana field office. Can you come downtown?"

"I'm on my way."

She hung up the phone. "I have to go to the police station."

Jeremy closed the report. "I'll take you."

"You don't-"

"Save your breath. Let's go."

Lisa stood at the teller's counter talking with Mollie and Miranda. She glared as Emilie walked past. "Where are you both going? It's only three."

"Emilie has to go to the police station," Jeremy said. "I'm taking her."

"Sorry about your mother." Lisa's eyes were empty. "Such a tragedy."

"Thank you."

"The paper said police had proof the Taker did it. Is that true?"

The note had been withheld from the press. "Yes."

"What's the proof?"

"Emilie can't discuss that, Lisa."

"Of course." A snide smile crossed her narrow face. "Well, at least you've got a s.e.xy cop willing to protect you."

"Excuse me?"

"The black-haired hottie from the other day. The one who slugged that pencil-necked detective. He sure seemed into you."

"That's none of your business."

"Hey, I think it's awesome. About time you had a man back in your life. Although," she looked down at her manicured nails, "isn't that against cop rules? Dating a victim?"

Emilie squeezed her phone to keep from smacking Lisa. Was she fishing for information or just trying to screw up her life?

"That will be enough," Jeremy said. "We've got to get to the station. Call me if you need anything."

"She's the Taker's informant," Emilie spat as soon as they were outside.

"Who? Lisa?"

"Yes. It's obvious, Jeremy."

"I don't know."

"You just don't want to see the bad in anyone. I don't have that problem. That b.i.t.c.h is a snake, and I'm making sure Ronson knows it today."

"Just lay it on me."

Detective Avery and Agent Ronson sat across from Emilie at the small table in the conference room while Jeremy fidgeted on her right. "I know it's going to be bad, so just get to it."

"In 2004 a woman matching your description disappeared from New Orleans," Agent Ronson said. "She'd filed a stalking complaint a month prior. Cops didn't have much to go on."

Cold sweat broke out across Emilie's forehead. "What happened to her?"

"They found her body in a shallow grave in the Cane River Valley area weeks after her disappearance. Animals had dug it up."

"Cane River. That's thick Creole area and very historical. Old South."

"He's from that area," Ronson said. "He took the victim back to the place he knew best."

"Why'd he leave Louisiana?" Emilie asked.

"To keep the heat off him." Detective Avery opened a manila folder. "Vic's name was Marie Adrieux. Twenty-five, a French Creole from New Orleans. She was a grad student at Loyola and was putting herself through school waiting tables at a popular French Quarter restaurant. In 2004, she reported a stalking incident to the New Orleans PD."

"What was the incident?"

"A man she once waited on showed up on her doorstep asking for a date. She declined and after that noticed him following her."

"Did she give police a description?"

Ronson slid a composite sketch across the table. Emilie gasped. He was clean-shaven, but she recognized the eyes. They were the only distinguishing features. "He looks average."

"Exactly," Avery said. "Girl could only remember his eyes in detail."

"What about his name?" Jeremy asked.

"Lawrence Dupart," Ronson said. "An alias."

"Two days before her disappearance she received flowers."

"Casablanca lilies," Emilie guessed.

"White jasmine," Avery said. "Grows in abundance in the South. Adrieux called the police. They told her they'd check into it. Then she disappeared."

"Where was she taken from?"

"Outside her apartment complex around eleven at night," Ronson said. "She was just getting home from work."

"Do you have a picture of her?"

Agent Ronson slid a photograph across the table. An attractive woman smiled back at Emilie. Her skin was light enough to easily see the freckles scattered across her nose. Her hair was a darker red than Emilie's.

"I don't see the resemblance." Jeremy peered over her shoulder. "Same face shape, but Emilie's hair is lighter. And she's fair skinned."

"It's in the eyes," Emilie whispered. Framed with thick lashes, Marie's eyes were almond-shaped and green, just like her own. "Look into mine, and then into hers."

"I agree," Ronson said. "The Taker obviously saw the similarity between you two and latched on. Your necklace just fed into his delusion."

"So you think he's trying to replace this girl with Emilie?" Jeremy asked.

"Looks like it. He probably took her thinking he could get her to reciprocate his feelings and then when she didn't, lost it," Ronson said. "Based on the time between her disappearance and estimated time of death, the coroner believes she lived for at least three weeks after she was kidnapped."

"He fled Louisiana and started a new life," Avery said. "He either didn't act on his compulsion or couldn't find the right woman. Then he saw you."

Emilie looked into the woman's smiling face. She had been so young, her entire life ahead of her. "There's more to it."

"What do you mean?" Ronson asked.

"Josephine is the key."

"Why?" Avery closed the file.

"I'm sure she was a child. Something happened to her. I don't know how, but this all goes back to her. I feel it in my gut."

"We went back ten years and couldn't find any record of children with that name going missing or dying."

Emilie looked at the sketch of the Taker. "Go back further. He's at least my age, if not older."

"She could have been a sister," Ronson said.

"It's a long shot," Avery countered.

"One that's worth taking. We need all the information we can get."

"Where exactly was Marie Adrieux found?" Jeremy still stared at Adrieux's picture.

"In a low-lying field in the Cane River Valley area. A hundred feet or so from the river. Smack in the middle of plantation alley," Ronson said.

"Plantation alley?"

"The Cane River Valley is a historical area heralded for its plantations," Emilie said. "Many of them are restored and are big tourist attractions."

"They never found his hideout." Avery put the picture of Adrieux back into the folder. "From the looks of her, she was kept somewhere very primitive, most likely underground. He definitely put a lot of time into planning her abduction."

"How'd she die?"

"You don't need the details."

"Yes, I do."

"Strangled. There's evidence he revived her more than once."

"So he wasn't sure he really wanted to kill her?"

"He was torturing her," Ronson said. "We've seen it before, especially in serial homicides."

"Because she didn't want him." She wondered what Marie's last days were like. Had she known her ultimate fate? Had she done anything to save herself? Maybe she had complied but the Taker was too smart to be fooled.

"She wasn't s.e.xually a.s.saulted," Avery said.

"Why?" Jeremy asked. "Isn't that what he wanted her for?"

"He's not s.e.xually motivated," Ronson answered. "He's trying to replace something he lost, and he wants the affection in return. Physically forcing himself on her would have given him no gratification."

"Then what would have?" Emilie couldn't understand how the Taker's motivations weren't s.e.xual. He'd had a hard-on when he dragged her into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Compliance. Attention. Interest," Ronson said. "He wanted her to love him."

"But wouldn't that lead to him wanting s.e.x? If he thought she felt the same?"

"Possibly." Ronson looked directly at Emilie. "But making him believe the feeling is truly mutual would have been Marie's only chance at survival."

"How was she supposed to know that?" Jeremy asked.

"By taking her cues from him. Paying attention to what he says and does. Making him feel rejected in any form would have been a fatal mistake."

"What about forensic evidence?" Jeremy asked. "There had to have been some."

"There was. But the FBI had nothing to match it to until now. Hair taken from Emilie's blouse matches hair found on Marie's body. Your mother also managed to scratch him. It's the same guy."