Grace factor.” The burdens of three years in office hadn’t robbed her of the look, though her long blond hair was now shoulder-length, and her big hazel eyes more often blinked with skepticism. She was a woman in transition, her mother had recently told her, from striking beauty to elegant self-assuredness.

“Good night, darling,” she said as she planted a kiss on Emily’s forehead. She placed the transmitter for the electronic baby monitor on the dresser beside the crib. The small cordless receiver fit easily into the deep pocket of her terry cloth robe. She switched on the volume. It was like eaves-dropping on your own baby, a one-way wiretap of sorts that allowed worried parents to wander around the house or sleep in another room without missing a single coo or gurgle. Allison adjusted her receiver to clear the static, then switched off the Winnie the Pooh lamp on the dresser and headed for the master bedroom.

The phone rang, striking panic. She snatched up the cordless telephone and ran to the guest bedroom at the other end of the house, far away from the sleeping angel for whom there would be hell to pay if she woke up now.

“Hello,” she answered in a husky whisper.

“Hi, it’s Mitch.”

She sighed. Mitch O’Brien, her ex-fiancé. Their engagement had lasted three years, until Allison finally admitted that her failure to set a wedding date wasn’t mere procrastination. It had been nearly eight months since their amicable breakup, but ever since he’d called three months ago to congratulate her on the adoption, he’d made a habit of calling every Monday night. Allison didn’t mind, though when she’d told him she hoped they could remain friends, she didn’t exactly mean best friends.

“So how’s little Miss America?” he asked.

“That was last week. This week she’s best actor.”

“You mean best actress.”

“We’ll see about that,” she said coyly.

A happy gurgle crackled over the baby monitor. Emily seemed to concur.

Allison smiled. “Actually, she’s so chatty lately I may groom her to replace Oprah in 2010. How’s this for her first show? Michael Crichton and Martha Stewart jointly touting their delicious new cure for cancer.”

Mitch laughed, then changed the subject. He was soon fishing to see how things were going in the dating department. She did have a new “significant other,” though a long-distance relationship with a man who lived in New York hardly seemed significant compared to what was in the next room. Allison was tuning out, focusing instead on the happy sounds of her baby transmitted by the monitor. To all else she was nearly oblivious—to Mitch’s words, to the passage of time.

To anything in the world that didn’t revolve around Emily.

“The Taker” was getting interference. He’d been parked at the end of Royal Oak Court for over ninety minutes, where the radio signal had been strong and clear. A steady chorus of gurgles and sighs, followed by intermittent snorts—the infantile version of sawing logs. Now, the airwaves were filled with annoying static, peppered with an occasional lapse into inane conversation between Allison Leahy and Mitch O’Brien.

She’s on a cordless phone, he realized. The combined radio frequencies were screwing up the signal he’d intercepted from the Leahy’s baby monitor.

He switched off the digital electronic scanner on the dashboard. The crackling stopped. The van was dark and silent. He cracked the driver-side window to release stale cigarette smoke, then crushed out his Camel in the overflowing ashtray. The blinking orange light on the console said the miniature cassette tape was still recording. He hit the stop button, then eject. He had all the recorded cooing and baby grunts he needed—nearly ninety minutes worth, counting the audiotape he’d made on last week’s stakeout.

Thanks to his earlier handiwork, the streetlight was out on the corner, leaving the Leahy residence in a shroud of darkness. He removed his sport shirt and slipped the top half of a hooded Nomex body suit over his torso. It fit like a wet suit, a sleek and perfect nighttime complement to his black jeans and black sneakers. He checked himself in the rearview mirror and covered his face with black greasepaint. His camouflage complete, he wiped his hands and pulled on black rubber gloves. He never used leather. Animal skin left its own set of distinctive patterns, like fingerprints. Quietly, he stepped down from the van.

The ranch-style house sat toward the back of a heavily wooded quarter-acre lot. A thick, ten-foot-high hedge enclosed the yard for privacy. Beneath the twisted limbs of towering oak trees, a curved