She shook her head. "I told you, no."

"Do you think other hikers could have come by your campsite after you left?"

"I did not hear or see anyone."

"Tell me what happened after you returned to the campsite, how you discovered she was gone, and what Doug told you and what you did."

"I remember at the halfway point back getting this strange feeling that something was wrong."

"What kind of feeling?"

"Just a chill or shudder and I stopped. I did not see or hear anything. It was just a feeling. Mother's instinct." She sniffed. "When I returned, Doug was reading. I asked about Paige. He said he thought she was with me, then ran down the trail where I had come, looking for her."

"Did he say what happened?"

"Only what I just told you."

"Was his hand hurt then?"

"Yes, after I got back."

"Did he tell you how he hurt his hand?"

"He said from chopping wood, I keep telling you."

"Then, as far as you know, he was the last person to see Paige?"

It was as if all sound stopped and the room held its breath.

Her fists went to her mouth, her eyes glistening, staring down at nothing. She nodded.

"Emily why did you rush to Montana. Why did you have to come here?"

She covered her face with her hands and wept.

"Guess what I am going to do."

Zander leaned forward.

"If there is something you think we should know," he said, "it might help if you shared it with us now."

Emily raised her eyes to Zander's.

He saw a woman drowning in something dark as the distant thundering of another helicopter grew louder. Emily sat there, a portrait of pain, a suspect in her daughter's disappearance. The helicopter grew more intense as the four investigators regarded her.

Zander checked his watch. Time was running out.

SEVENTEEN.

Immediately after Emily Baker's first interview with the task force, Zander pulled Bowman aside in the few minutes they had alone.

"Emily's demeanor at this stage is absolutely critical. She could bond, open up. She may need a little nudge."

A female Ranger had taken Emily to find an unoccupied restroom. Zander's attention darted between where she would emerge and Bowman.

"I want you to begin working on securing Emily's trust before you fly back with her to the command post. Work on her woman to woman." Zander's blue eyes bored into hers. "It is vital you not fail. You will not get a second chance at this."

The full weight of what was at stake began settling on Bowman. Through the command center windows she saw the news trucks. Inside, the TV monitors in the operations room played the muted chatter of live network reports. Bowman swallowed. A few hours ago, she would have been at her desk, quietly dealing with forms, her keyboard and her little frustrations. This was huge. Moving so fast. She could not afford to screw up.

"You understand, Bowman? Can you handle that? Or should I request someone else?"

Zander was an ass. He might be a legendary detective, able to pick up her twinge of self-doubt, but he was still an ass.

"Tell me, Zander, with you being an expert on the 'woman-to-woman approach,' what advice can you provide so that I don't fail?"

"It's evident she likes you, Bowman. Get her talking to you. Beat us up if you like. Win her confidence. Whatever it takes." Zander checked his watch. "You'll have an hour, maybe less, with her. Then we bring the dad in."

"What do we want to know?"

"The truth."

Emily returned, nodding her thanks to the ranger, giving a half-smile to Bowman, who escorted her through the chaos of the command center.

Emily's face tightened, her eyes glistening as the impact of her daughter's drama hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.

Paige staring back at her from the TV monitors from the early-morning news reports, still pictures of her and Doug. The entire country was watching.

"This way, Emily."

Bowman took Emily outside through a back entrance to an empty FBI SUV with Utah plates, filled with manuals, maps empty fast-food wrappers and newspapers. At least it would be private. They climbed in.

Emily was tearful, drained.

"How long before I can get back to the campsite? I want to be there in case the find her."

About an hour, Bowman explained. Because the search was going full throttle it might take that long before a helicopter could ferry her back and fly Doug in. Emily stared at the mountains.

"Have they found anything?"

"I'm sorry. Nothing so far that we're aware of."

Emily was dabbing her eyes, sniffling. "Do you think I am a horrible mother?"

"Every mother thinks they are a horrible mother when something bad happens."

"I think Zander and the others think I am a terrible mother."

"Why?"

"For losing my child."

"I think they just want to know everything that happened so they can find Paige."

"I told Zander everything. I know he doesn't believe me. I saw it in his face, heard it in his tone."

Emily looked at Bowman, assessing her as a friend or an enemy.

"Do you have children, Tracy?"

"A son, Mark. He's nine."

"Have you ever had anything horrible happen in your life?"

Bowman rolled to Carl's empty side of the bed that night he took the call. Then the pounding began on the front door. Barry Tully, highway patrolman, stood there, his hat in his hand. He couldn't get the words out. He didn't have to because she knew....

"Yes. I have," Tracy said. "My husband died a few years ago."

"I'm sorry. How, illness or..."

"Highway crash."

Emily looked at nothing in the treetops. "Then you know what it is like to get pulled into a surreal whirlwind where nothing makes sense, where it so painful you would give anything to stop it, to go back to better days."

Bowman could feel Emily reaching out to her, subconsciously trying to bond. Woman to woman, mother to mother. Be careful, she told herself.

"Yes, Emily, I've known terrible things in my life, like most people."

"I know Zander and the others are trying to find out if I had anything to do with Paige's disappearance."

"It's more complicated than that."

"Is it?"

"We're--"Bowman caught herself--"they're just trying to learn truth surrounding the time Paige got lost, I mean--"

"The truth? That implies you think I'm lying--"

"No, Emily, I mean, I mean the facts, the details--I am sorry--"

"What about you, then? Do you think I had something to do with Paige's vanishing? And I want you to tell me the truth and let me judge you."

Bowman searched her heart. She found no evidence that convinced her Emily committed any crime other than having an argument that resulted in her ten-year-old daughter running off and getting lost in the Rocky Mountains. But somewhere in a dark corner, Bowman felt, Emily was hiding something disturbing.

"I do not think you committed any crime."

Emily brought her fists to her mouth. "Thank you."

Oh Jesus, was that a mistake, telling her that? Bowman thought quickly.

"But I do think you and Doug are, or were, in the midst of something very troubling that you fear is related to Paige running off."

Emily said nothing for a moment, then, "Do you think we will find her?"

"I'm praying that we do."

Bowman's pulse was racing, not seeing the activity, the mountains. She was torn between her fear that Emily was so calculating and cunning she had just been played for a fool, or Emily was the innocent victim of tragic circumstances.

"I understand you used to live in Montana, grew up here?"

Emily nodded. "But it has been years."

"Why did you come back?"

"To bury something from the past."

Bowman felt gooseflesh surface on the back of her neck.

"Would you like to talk to me about it, Emily?"

Emily shook her head. "I can't." A curtain of sorrow fell over her. "I can't tell anyone. I--I." Emily began weeping softly, her voice dropping.

Bowman strained to listen, Emily almost whispering to herself, making Bowman unsure of what she was hearing.

"I need my daughter back. I cannot go through this again. I will not survive this," Then Emily's voice rose, her face lifting to the mountaintops.

"God, please, where is she?"

EIGHTEEN.

Paige awoke, shivering and hungry.

It was cold and damp in her shelter. She should get into the sun. Try to find her way back. Was it safe? She was afraid.