CHAPTER 4: DIANE

Diane Hartley worked the day shift at St. Catherine's Hospital, which meant she left her apartment at six in the morning and didn't return until four in the afternoon. It meant she was exhausted most of the time, her feet aching, her back sore, her mind numb from the repetitive motions of being a nurse—changing bedpans, distributing medications, comforting patients who were afraid of dying and who had every reason to be afraid.

She was thirty-six years old and looked fifty. She'd been married once to a man named Robert Hartley, who'd been arrested for a crime he didn't commit and who'd spent three years in prison before the real perpetrator was found. By the time Robert was released, Diane had already decided that she was better off without him, that a man who couldn't protect himself couldn't be trusted to protect anyone else. She'd kept his last name because changing it back to her maiden name felt like admitting defeat.

She had a son. His name was Michael, and he was nine years old, and he was the only good thing that had ever happened to her. Michael was smart and kind and believed that the world was fundamentally decent. Diane spent most of her time trying to protect him from the knowledge that it wasn't.

This was the fall of 1975, and the city was full of fear. Parents were keeping their children inside. Schools had added security. There was a killer out there, the news said, a man taking children and leaving them in basements. Diane had heard about the murders the way everyone had—through television and newspapers and the whispered conversations of people waiting for buses or standing in grocery lines.

She didn't think it would happen to her. People never thought it would happen to them.

Michael went to Lincoln Elementary, the same school where David Chen had been a student. Diane had been to a parent-teacher conference there two months ago, before the murders started, when the school still felt like a safe place. Now it felt like a trap, a building designed to put children in danger.

She picked Michael up every day at three o'clock, standing in the schoolyard with the other parents, watching the children file out. Michael would run to her with his backpack and his homework and his detailed reports of the day's events. He loved to talk, to describe what he'd learned, what his friends had said, what the teacher had done. He was a child in the truest sense—open, trusting, without the bitter knowledge that the world could take him.

On a Tuesday in November, Diane was home sick. She had the flu, or something like the flu, a fever and aches and the kind of exhaustion that came from her body shutting down. She'd called the hospital and told them she wouldn't be coming in. She'd spent the day in bed, listening to the rain outside her window.

Michael came home from school at three-fifteen, let himself in with his key (he was old enough now to carry a key, old enough to be trusted with the responsibility of opening a door), and made himself a peanut butter sandwich. He was supposed to stay in the apartment until Diane woke up, but he was a good boy and followed rules. He did his homework. He read a book. He was a model of obedience and responsibility.

At five o'clock, Diane woke up feeling slightly better. She made Michael dinner—chicken and potatoes and vegetables. They ate together in their small kitchen, and Michael told her about school. A boy named Tommy had been mean to him at recess, but another boy had defended him. His math teacher had complimented his work on fractions. Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

That night, Diane watched the local news while Michael did his homework. The reporter was talking about the serial killer, about the ongoing investigation, about the importance of vigilance. "Children are being targeted," the reporter said. "Parents are urged to know where their children are at all times. Keep your children safe. Be aware of strangers. Report any suspicious activity to police."

Diane held her son a little tighter that night when she put him to bed. She made sure all the doors were locked. She checked the windows. She told Michael that if anyone ever tried to take him, he should scream and run. Michael said he understood, but he didn't really understand. He was nine years old. He couldn't comprehend the kind of evil that would take a child for no reason except that it could.

The city was afraid. The whole city was learning to be paranoid, to see danger in every shadow, to trust nobody. And the killer, whoever he was, was feeding on that fear. He was making the whole city hollow, draining it of safety and certainty, leaving only dread.

Mercer would never know that he was being watched by someone who wasn't the killer. A man in a brown sedan, parked three blocks away, observing the routines of a woman and her child. The man's name was Vernon Cole, and he worked as a building superintendent for an apartment complex downtown. He had no criminal record. He had no history of violence. He was forty-eight years old and lived alone and had never had a serious relationship. To anyone who knew him, he was utterly unremarkable.

To himself, he was a surgeon of sorts, someone who worked with precision and care, someone who understood the mechanics of taking life and understood how to do it without leaving obvious signs. He'd killed before—not children, not yet, but other things, smaller things, experiments to refine his technique. Now he was ready for something larger. Now he was ready for children.

Michael Hartley was on his list. The boy was the right age, the right build, the right level of trusting naiveté. Cole had watched him walk to school, watched him play at recess, watched him walk home again. He'd watched the mother too, had noted her routine, had observed the gap in her attention that occurred when she was tired or sick. He was patient. He could wait. The waiting was part of the pleasure.

Diane didn't know any of this. She went back to work the next day, still recovering from the flu. She kissed Michael goodbye in the morning and told him to be careful. She picked him up from school and brought him home and made him dinner. She existed in the normal rhythms of a mother and a child, unaware that she was being studied, that her child had been selected for taking, that somewhere in the city, a man was making plans that would destroy everything she had.

The future was gray. The future was full of darkness. But Diane was still living in the present, in the day-to-day, in the moment-to-moment. She didn't know yet that her world was about to change forever.