Was the thing that chased her last night still out there?

So afraid. She had to stop shivering.

Where's Kobee?

She inched her head out, began looking in every direction, her entire body aching, cuts and scrapes stinging. She was starving. Her throat was raw. She coughed. It hurt a little.

She threw small rocks in every direction, hoping to hear the thing stir if it was waiting for her.

Nothing. She continued tossing them, only farther.

She had to get back. Her parents were going to kill her. Maybe they would be so mad they would leave without her.

No. Don't let that happen! Please! Somebody help me!

But why were they fighting so much? They were getting a divorce. That had to be it. They brought her on this trip to tell her they did not love each other anymore, that she would have to decide which of her parents she wanted to live with, then tell a judge or something.

Some of the divorced kids at school said that's how it happens.

She prayed it would not happen her.

Mom and Dad still love each other, don't they?

Paige had to get back. Had to help them stay together.

Carefully, she stepped out of her shelter, shielded her eyes from the morning sun, scanning the slope, then decided on a direction. Walking warmed her, made her feel a little better. But she had no idea where she was going. She walked into a forest that looked inviting, easy to travel through.

She was so hungry.

She started thinking about a cheeseburger, fries, a milkshake, tacos, the fridge at home, a ham and cheese sandwich, yogurt, fruit, orange juice with shaved ice, her mom's spaghetti with mushroom sauce and garlic bread, homemade apple pie.

She missed San Francisco, their house near Golden Gate Park, her room with her cool loft bed, her books, the computer, her poster of Leonardo DiCaprio. The big beautiful picture Mom took of her and Kobee at the beach.

Where was Kobee?

She called for him. "Kobeeee!" Stupid beagle.

Paige stopped to sit on a flat sun-warmed rock. She was so hungry.

The trees, the slopes and mountains that went on forever and ever. She hated this place. It was not beautiful; it was scary. Something had chased her last night. Something frightening that she did want to even think about.

Paige had overheard her mother telling someone on the phone once that her monster "dwelled in the mountains." Paige now knew monsters were real. One almost got her last night. Would she ever get back home? She had no idea where she was going. Her feet were sore.

She was so hungry.

She swallowed and searched her pack.

Two granola bars, an apple and a bottle of water.

She was starving. Licking her lips, she forced herself to eat only the apple, to eat it as slowly as possible. Savoring every bit, sucking the juice, actually tasting the skin, nibbling down to the core, leaving no meat on the seed pockets or the stem, contemplating eating them too.

When she finished, she was still hungry. Gripping the two packaged granola bars. One blueberry. One strawberry. Sitting there craving, aching to eat them.

But then what?

What would she eat when they were gone?

She wept.

Mommy. Daddy. Come and get me. Please. Take me home. Please.

She sobbed, believing her parents, the entire world, had forgotten about her; fearing she would never see them or her friends again. At first, she didn't hear the distant sound as it drew closer, familiar, pricking her ears. A jingling, then panting.

Paige blinked.

Kobee?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was in her lap.

"Kobee!"

Licking her face.

Squeezing him, hugging him, kissing him.

"You bad, bad wonderful mutt. I love you--don't you ever leave me again!"

Paige placed her hand on either side of his head, staring at him eye to eye.

"Now you have to show me the way back! You!"

What was wrong? His eyes were not right. They held something bad. Terror. Body trembling. Her fingers. Wet. Something gooey on them pulling them away, stained red. Blood. Kobee was bleeding. Paige's heart raced.

"What happened?"

She swallowed.

His side had been sliced. Like it been raked with sharp knives. Flesh torn.

What was that?

Huffing. Snorting.

Coming toward her, crashing through the forest. Branches snapping. Louder than the sound of the distant search helicopter.

"Oh God!"

Paige scooped Kobee in her arms and ran for her life.

NINETEEN.

In the task force room, while the investigators awaited Doug Baker's arrival, Inspector Walt Sydowski reviewed Frank Zander's approach to go hard on Emily Baker, then have Tracy Bowman pick up the pieces.

"You are pushing the right buttons, but--"

"But what?"

"I think you need leverage before going any harder. We have nothing but disturbing circumstances. Things are not always what they seem. We need something physical, irrefutable. The father's wound might be a start, or finding the ax."

Zander hated being second-guessed. He glared at Sydowski, on the verge of snapping at him, but chose to hold his words.

"Well, I for one do not approve of this approach," Elsie Temple, the park's superintendent, peered at Zander over her glasses. "Why put the Bakers through this? It serves nothing. I think you should wait until you have evidence of a crime."

"And your opinion is based on how many criminal investigations, Ms. Temple?" Zander shot at her, causing her face to redden. "We've seen what happened in Yellowstone when people waited until they tripped over the evidence."

"Agent Zander, it just appears--"

"Ms. Temple, a liar tells a tale a thousand ways. The more distance you get from the crime, the more opportunity for the suspects to fortify themselves. It seems Emily has already lied about stress in her family before the trip and counseling, if the San Francisco information holds up. There is the domestic call, Doug Baker's wound, the absence of his ax. You rarely get the truth the first time around. If you collect statements while aggressively searching for physical evidence that contradicts the family's account of things, then your case strengthens."

"And if you are wrong?" Temple said.

"Then it's a price I'll gladly pay, considering the alternative," Zander said. "If we are wrong, then hopefully the Bakers get their daughter back alive and well. But if Paige Baker has been harmed and we have bungled so badly that no one answers for it, consider the legacy. Not something you will feature with pictures on the lovely brochures for your pretty park, is it?"

Temple jaw dropped. "How do you live with yourself?"

Zander did not answer her. Instead, he took a call advising the task force that Mr. Ropa had arrived.

Bobby Ropa was wearing a New York Giants T-shirt and faded Levis. Looked to be in his early thirties and in good shape. First thing he did after introducing himself to the investigators was produce his NYPD blue-crested shield.

Zander seated Ropa, professionally reminding him about confidentiality; then got down to business.

"You looking at the dad?" Ropa said, eager to help.

"We're talking to everybody, looking at everything."

"You should look hard at the dad."

"Tell us about your information," Zander said.

Ropa recounted how his family was coming out of Grizzly Tooth, along a twisting part of the trail, when they heard voices carrying loud and clear.

"This family, the Bakers from the news pictures, it was them. They had stopped for lunch in a clearing but were arguing."

Ropa explained how quiet it can get up there and how they heard much of the argument before they came up on the Bakers.

"First thing I picked up was the girl, Paige, upset, says she thinks she knows why her parents brought her to the mountains. Then her old man says, tell us. The girl figures her parents are divorcing because of her mother's problems, that she's got to choose a parent to live with.

"The mother denies it, and the kid is crying. The mother says it is complicated. We kind of round a bend and come up on them, in time to see the old man explode. Big time. It all goes down fast.

"He demands the mother tell them 'exactly what the hell is going on with you!' She starts wailing and he screams at her that he is sick and tired 'of this veneer. This pretense of a happy family'. He blames it all on the mother.

"We're just stunned, like we're watching a play. Street theater.

"She gets hysterical, accusing him of thinking she's 'wigged out,' dragging them all to the mountains for some inexplicable reason. The kid gets into it, threatens to run off a mountain because of the parents. The mother answers her with something like, 'Don't ever say that.'

"That's when I step in with, you know, 'Everything okay there?' The old man gets cool fast, switching it off as I eyeball him. He makes a joke, a little first-day stress, or something. I see he's got an ax, a small hatchet, hanging from his pack. I ask them if they have bear spray, because we spotted a Grizzly sow with cubs in a meadow by a river a day or so earlier.

"Then I see they got a dog concealed in one of the packs, against park regs. Part of the family, the father says, could not leave home without him.

About then I marshal my family out of there. It was a weird scene. We see nothing more until the news hits that the father reports the daughter lost.

"The way I figure it, we saw their fireworks display the day before she vanished. I don't know what to make of it. Don't know what else you got, but this thing--she smells to me."

None of the task force members spoke for the longest time as they ingested the new disturbing information from Robert L. Ropa, detective first grade with the NYPD's 67th Precinct in Brooklyn.

TWENTY.

Worry gnawed at the pit of Doug Baker's empty stomach as he scanned the forests from their campsite command post.

Radios broadcasted reports and instructions between the planes and helicopters overhead, the search teams scouring the high country and the scores of rangers and now FBI agents ferried in to help.

So far, they found no trace of Paige.

Doug's fear for her was like a leaden cloak enshrouding him, weighing him down, exhausting him. How long could she survive? Now, Emily was with the FBI. It all seemed out of control since police arrived. The way they never let them help search, the way they always watched them, kept from being alone.

"...We'll take you in separately...."

The tone of that remark implied so much. The FBI knew something. Doug felt it in his gut. They suspected a crime. Something. There was that other family. Or maybe strangers on the trail. What did they know? He had to do something. Anything. He was supposed to wait here until Emily returned and they sent for him. But Doug was tired of waiting. It was time to do something.

"Excuse me," he said to the nearest FBI agent. "Could you find out if my wife is still at the command center or on her way back?"

The agent made a radio inquiry.