"Oh, no, the press." Then she sniffed and nodded. "But that's a good thing, isn't it."

"Come on, Kara. Jim's tied up with the police right now anyway, and we have to talk."

Kara frowned up at Edie but didn't argue as her sister tugged her away from the crowd to a small grove of trees where Alex and Mel waited. The others were still with Jim, trying to be of help.

"Okay," Alex said. "Here's what we know. The police aren't releasing any of the intimate details to the press, just your standard Amber Alert-Tyler's photo and description, along with the names and descriptions of his abductors and the suspect vehicle. The last thing they want is a P.I. snooping around, but I was here before them, so I got the freshest information. Turns out Billy Turner drove by here this morning and saw a strange car in the driveway. Dark blue, late-model Ford, Illinois plates."

"That's the same car Jim described," she said. "I don't suppose he got the plate number."

"No. But it shouldn't be too tough to track them down. Neither of them have any personal link to our area, so it stands to reason-"

"Wait a minute. How do you know they don't have any connections here?"

Alex shot a look at Mel. Mel pursed her lips, lowered her eyes. "I was concerned about you, hon. I...we started to run a background check on Jim."

Kara blinked, stunned. "Mel, you shouldn't have done that."

"The hell I shouldn't. You're my sister. And clearly I was right in my assumption that he had a few skeletons in his closet."

Kara shook her head. "You're like a bulldozer, you know that? It was my business, my call. You should have asked me."

Mel sighed. "I'm not used to asking permission to protect my family. Anyway, we turned up the marriage, the maiden name of his ex. So we went ahead and ran a check on her, as well. The woman's a train wreck."

"Yeah, that much I know. We all do-Jim was honest about that."

"Eventually," Mel muttered.

Alex shot her a quelling look. "She's had numerous arrests, including minor drug offenses, prostitution, but nothing to suggest any friends or relatives in Oklahoma."

"So what good does that do us?" Kara asked.

"They have to be staying somewhere," Alex said. "If we work on the assumption that Vinnie has no connections here either, that leaves a hotel, motel, something like that. Those kinds of places take license plate numbers down when people check in. So do campgrounds. We can easily start checking anyone who checked in with Illinois plates. In fact, we've already started-Maya's making calls from the house."

"Won't the police be doing the same thing?" she asked.

"Probably. And they'll probably find them. But I think it would be a good idea for us to be there if and when they do track them down. This guy's dangerous. An armed standoff with Tyler as a hostage would not be in the boy's best interests."

Kara shivered. The image was too much to even consider. Her stomach heaved and she turned away, gripping her belly and doubling over. She vomited in the bushes. Alex swore, and Mel gripped Kara's shoulders, held her hair back.

"Kara?"

She heard Jimmy's voice, closed her eyes and wished she could stop retching, but she couldn't. A second later his hands replaced Mel's on her shoulders. "Kara, are you okay?"

Finally under control, she nodded, tried to straighten. Alex handed her a handkerchief and she wiped her mouth.

Jimmy was searching her face, and his own looked helpless. She said, "Don't. Don't waste a minute worrying about me. You've got more than enough on your plate right now. I'm fine."

He shot a look past her at Alex. "She should be home. I don't want her going through all this and I can't take care of her-"

"You don't need to take care of me."

Her words brought a wounded look to his face. "Please, Kara. Go to your mother's. You're wrung out. You look ready to drop."

She drew a breath, ready to argue with him. But then it occurred to her that she could help Maya track down the lowlife animals who were using a small child the way they were. "What's happening, Jimmy? What are the police doing?"

"Everything that can be done. They're organizing volunteers to search the woods, bringing in dogs to try to pick up Tyler's scent, setting up roadblocks." He looked her up and down. "There's nothing you can do here, honey. Ty's gonna need you when he gets back. And if he sees you falling apart..."

She nodded. "I'll go home."

"Have some of Selene's special tea. Maybe some chicken soup or something to settle your belly."

"Call the minute you hear anything."

"I'll drive her," Selene said. Her eyes said more, but the look in them was for Kara alone.

Jim nodded. "I'll check in on you." Then almost as if on impulse, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. "Thank you, Kara."

"For what? I haven't done anything." But God, his arms felt good around her just then, even though she wouldn't let herself melt into them or embrace him in return. She wished she could stay wrapped in those arms forever. If only he loved her.

"You don't know what you've done," he said. "I'm glad you're here with me. I wouldn't want to go through this without you."

She couldn't say the words that wanted so badly to be said. That she loved him. Always would. Instead she said, "He'll be okay, Jimmy. I know he will."

He walked with her out to the road, put her into Selene's little car and closed the door. Then he stood there and watched until Selene had driven them out of sight.

When she couldn't look back at him any longer, Kara finally turned to her sister.

Selene had that look in her eyes. That intense, almost eerie look she got sometimes. "What is it, Selene?" Kara asked.

Selene blinked and glanced her way, saying nothing.

"You know something," Kara blurted, reading her sister's expression. What is it?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, Selene, spill. You've got an inkling. A feeling. Something."

Selene pursed her lips, sighed. "I don't think it would be a good idea to let the police be the ones to find him. When Alex was saying what he said, I saw...something. A flash. But there was shouting and gunfire, and I had a terrible feeling about Tyler."

"Any idea where he is?"

Selene shook her head. Kara reached for the cell phone on the dash. When Maya picked up, Kara asked her if she'd found anything yet.

"No. None of the local motels or inns have anyone registered with Illinois plates. And I've checked almost all of them."

"There can't be many."

"A dozen. At least within twenty miles. Maybe we'll have to look farther."

"Keep trying, Maya."

"I will. How are you holding up?"

"I'll be fine. Don't worry. Listen, I have to go. Love you, sis."

"Love you, too, Kara."

She disconnected and turned to Selene. "They'd have to be pretty stupid to put Illinois plates on a hotel registry," she said slowly. "I mean, they had to know we'd be looking for them that way."

Selene nodded. "You're right. And it's not like anyone checks. You just write the information in the book and they hand you a room key."

"So chances are Maya's phone calls are useless. The only way we're going to know for sure is to drive to those places and look for that car ourselves. I just wish I knew where to start."

Selene pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road, sending up a cloud of dust. She reached past Kara to open the glove compartment, and from it she took a small velvet drawstring bag. "Grab the map and get out," she said.

Kara didn't question. She knew better than to question her kid sister. She rummaged in the glove compartment for a map of the area and got out of the car. Then she went around to the front, where Selene was already standing, and she unfolded the map on the hood of the car.

"No, no. Spread it on the ground. I don't want the car's electronics interfering. Right here." Selene pointed.

Kara laid the map on the ground. The wind kept catching it, so she gathered four small rocks and placed one at each corner to keep it from blowing away.

Selene knelt on the ground in front of the map and opened the drawstring bag. She drew a chain from it, and as it emerged, Kara saw the crystal suspended from its end. "Selene?"

"It's a pendulum," Selene said. "I've been practicing with it."

"I've seen them on TV. You swing it around in circles until it falls from your hand, right?"

"TV." Selene rolled her eyes. "No, they don't know much on TV. Pick a spot on the map where a hotel or motel is."

"Here," Kara said, pointing. "There are three west of town."

"Okay. Now just think about Tyler. Put his face in your mind, and I will, too."

Nodding, Kara thought of Tyler. His beautiful silky hair. His dimples, so like his dad's. The mischievous twinkle in his eyes. As she watched, Selene held the pendulum perfectly still, suspended over the portion of the map Kara had indicated.

At first nothing happened. The crystal just hung there, motionless. But then slowly, almost imperceptibly, it began to move. The motion was so slight at first that Kara thought she might be imagining it. But she wasn't. It moved faster, its arc growing larger, until it was swinging back and forth, from side to side.

Selene snapped the chain and caught the crystal in her hand. "That's a no," she said. "Tyler isn't there. Where else?"

Kara swallowed hard and racked her brain to think of other hotels and motels within driving distance. She pointed to another spot on the map, and Selene repeated the entire process, getting the same answer again.

And again Kara searched her mind, thought of a motel northeast of Big Falls and pointed. Selene let the pendulum dangle. This time the movement started immediately. There was no subtlety, no question. It swung, making a perfect and ever-widening circle over the spot on the map.

"That's it," Selene said. "That's a yes. That's where he is." She lifted her eyes to Kara's and maybe saw the doubt there.

"It's outside the radius of the search," Kara said. "It's almost forty miles away."

"What can it hurt to drive out there and check?" Selene asked.

"Nothing. It can't hurt anything at all."

Chapter 14.

Jim searched the faces of the men around him. His own boss, Chief Wilcox, had flown down from Chicago and stood beside the Big Falls police chief, Earl Wheatly, and Colby. Local officers, men he didn't know, were there, as well.

"We've checked every hotel and motel in the area. None have any record of them under either of their names," Chief Wheatly said.

Jim nodded. "I didn't expect there would be. Vinnie's too smart to use his own name. You'll need to go by the plates."

"Tried that, too," he said. "No Illinois plates."

Jim closed his eyes, fought off the slow-building panic, squelched it and wished to hell Kara were there. Her presence had a calming effect on him, like cool water on a fever. It bothered him, that feeling of needing her.

"Try the campgrounds then." He looked at the officers who surrounded him. "They might be holed up anywhere. We should check out any abandoned houses, any homes where the families are on vacation, anything like that."

"I've got some men checking every empty house we know of, others canvassing the residents to add to the list," Chief Wheatly said.

"Okay." He moved from that group of men to the woman who knelt near the roadside with a matched set of long-eared, sad-eyed bloodhounds, both straining at the ends of their leashes. She was a full-bodied woman with twinkling eyes, currently dimmed by a worried frown. "Any luck?" he asked her.

"Yeah, all of it bad. They tracked your boy from the house to the driveway. Right where those men were lifting tire tracks. He was taken from here in a car."

"I assumed as much. I'm sorry we got you and the dogs out here for nothing."

"Oh, not for nothing. They can track your son in a car, or otherwise. For a while, anyway." She pointed in the direction her dogs seemed so eager to go. "They took him north."

Jim lifted his brows. He'd never worked with dogs before, had no idea their senses were that keen.

"I just need some men to follow. I'll walk as far as I can. But it might be slow going."

"You can't just let them go at their own pace and follow in a car?" he asked.

"A bloodhound on the scent will walk in front of a bus or off a cliff and be dead before he realizes it. No, Mr. Corona. I stay with the dogs."

He nodded, then waved to some of the officers. When they came over, he repeated what the dog's handler had said, and within a few moments the woman was heading north along the road's shoulder, one cop walking beside her and another following at a snail's pace in a cruiser.

If Vinnie and Ang had taken Tyler more than a few miles...Hell.

Poor Tyler. What must he be going through right now? He wondered if Angela had tried to tell him who she was. God, how confusing would that be for him? And Vinnie-if that slimebag so much as put a hand on his kid...

"Corona! Phone's ringing!" someone shouted.