"Yeah, but I didn't ask for any of this stuff for Christmas." Tyler grabbed the box that held the game system and started tearing it open.

"What did you ask for?" the lady asked.

"A mom," he told her.

It was the third motel they had checked, and Kara was so impatient she thought her head would explode. Selene was driving her little car slowly through the motel parking lot when Kara saw it-a car with Illinois plates. Selene saw it at the same moment and sent a startled glance at Kara.

"They're here. That has to be them. They're here, we've found them," Kara whispered. "God, Selene, you're uncanny with that pendulum trick of yours. I can't even believe it."

"Yeah. The question is, now that we've found them, what do we do about it?"

Kara sighed. "I just have to make sure Tyler's okay. After that...we'll figure something out."

"We don't even know which room. And this place is huge," Selene said.

"Pendulum again?"

"I'm not that good. Besides, by the time I get a yes or no answer to every room number in this place, it'll be midnight."

"Then what do we do? How do we find out which room they're in?"

Selene shrugged. "I'm gonna go talk to the desk clerk. You stay here. If Tyler sees you he'll give you away." She opened the glove compartment and took out a notepad and pen. "Jot down the plate number of the car. Just in case they get away from us again."

"Okay. But if you figure out where they are, don't go near the room without me."

"You think we should call Jimmy first?" Selene asked.

Kara thought on it a moment. But God, he was going through so much. "Let's make sure it's really them first. I don't want to get his hopes up only to have them crushed again."

"You really love him, don't you?"

"Yeah. I really do." She only wished the feeling was mutual. Sighing, she gave her head a shake. "Park this thing and let's get on with it."

Selene nodded, pulled the car into the first available parking space, then got out and hurried into the motel office.

Kara stayed in the car, her gaze skimming the motel rooms' doors, their windows. She strained her vision until her eyes watered. But there was no sign of Tyler.

Not until a pizza delivery car pulled up in front of the row of rooms and a teenager got out with a pizza box and a paper bag. He went to a door and knocked, and Kara watched because it was the only movement she'd seen.

A man opened the door. He looked up and down the sidewalk before his gaze settled on the delivery boy. Kara rolled her window down.

The man took the pizza and the other bag the kid carried, handing them off to someone inside the room, then he dug out some money.

"All right! Pizza's here!" someone cried.

It was a child's voice.

It was Tyler's voice.

Kara waited until the door was closed, the pizza car gone, before she got out of the car. She glanced toward the office, but there was no sign of Selene yet. As an afterthought she dug a tube of lipstick from her purse and wrote on the side-view mirror, "RM. 15." Then she put the lipstick away and started toward the room.

Jim got out of the pickup and started toward the Brand house. Before he'd gone two steps, Wade and Caleb were flanking him. He paused, because he got the distinct feeling they were holding him up even though neither man was touching him. And it was an odd feeling.

He didn't have close friends, other than Colby. Didn't have family. Now all of the sudden he had an entire herd of people who, by all appearances, would be willing to give him a kidney. It was surreal.

Vidalia opened the front door before he reached it and then she was hugging him hard. "Poor man, you look terrible. We're gonna find that boy, you mark my words."

He nodded, but he realized when she said it that he wasn't as certain. A bone-chilling fear had taken up residence deep inside him.

She tugged him inside then, walking beside him. He saw Edie turn around and hug her husband. She'd been standing at the counter, putting on a fresh pot of coffee. It made him ache for Kara.

"Mel and Alex are working on several possibilities," Vidalia said. "Maya's upstairs putting the twins down for a nap. How are the police doing? Any leads?"

"Nothing yet." He looked around the kitchen. He didn't see Kara, and the lead weight of longing in his belly grew heavier. "Is Kara here?"

Vidalia frowned. "Well, no, she never came home. We all assumed she'd changed her mind and she and Selene had gone back over to your place."

"She didn't." He frowned.

"No doubt she's out looking for that boy herself. Land, but I never saw anything like the way she's taken to that child. Not that the rest of us haven't, but Kara...well, she's as smitten with Tyler as she is with you, Jim."

Another guilt arrow stabbed into his chest. It brought company. A new worry. "I don't like that no one knows where she is."

"She wouldn't want you worrying," Vidalia said, "much less diverting any time or attention from searching for Tyler to go out looking for her. She'll call in."

He pursed his lips and sent a look at Wade and Caleb.

"Let's see what Alex and Mel are working on," Caleb suggested. "Give her a little time to call home. Okay?"

Jim nodded.

"They're in the study-got computers set up and phones going and goodness only knows what all," Vidalia said.

Jim followed her in, but he couldn't get rid of the niggling dread in his belly.

Chapter 15.

Kara crept toward the motel room, but there were only the door and a large picture window there, curtains partially drawn. She was afraid she would be spotted for sure if she moved much closer. Biting her lip, she looked around at the way the place was set up. There were three blocks of rooms, two stories each, long and rectangular in shape, with pavement and groomed lawn in between. She eyed the room that held Tyler, memorized its position, counted the number of doors from the far end, then crept around to the rear of the building. There were windows in the back, too. Small ones, set high. One for each room, as near as she could guess.

Swallowing her fear, she began counting. When she got to the fifteenth tiny window, she moved close to it, crouched beneath it, then chanced a quick peek inside, ducking down quickly. A bathroom. She hadn't glimpsed anyone in it, so she rose and took a longer look. The bathroom wasn't neat. There were damp towels piled on the floor, and clothes tossed beside them. The bathroom door was open, though, and she could see into the motel room itself. People moving around-a man and a woman.

Then she glimpsed Tyler. He was on the bed and had suddenly slid closer to the foot of it, bringing him into her range of vision. Her heart pounded as she drank in the sight of him. He looked all right. Unharmed. He wasn't wearing his leg braces and she wondered why. Maybe they thought he wouldn't be able to run away if they kept the braces from him.

Kara backed away from the window, barely able to catch her breath. Quickly, she jogged back around to the front of the building, where she intercepted Selene on her way back to the car.

Selene met her eyes as they drew close. "No luck with them, they don't know...What? What is it?"

"They're in room fifteen. Right there." She pointed. "There's a window in the back-it's a bathroom. I saw Ty. I think he's okay."

Selene gripped her sister's hands. "Thank God. What do you want to do? Should we call the police? Jim?"

"Either one amounts to the same thing. And a hostage standoff is the last thing we need here. Maybe we can just...spirit him away."

"How?"

"Okay, well. I have an idea."

"Why do I think I'm not going to like this?"

"Because you're probably not. But just hear me out. Ty has to go the bathroom sooner or later. He's a kid-they go every ten minutes, right?"

Selene pursed her lips.

"So you pull the car around back. There's more parking back there, so it won't look odd. Leave it running. Then you and I sneak up to that window and we wait. When Tyler comes into the bathroom, we get him to unlock the window, we pull him out and we take off with him."

Selene nodded slowly. "It's risky."

"As risky as having the police surround this place? He could get hurt, Selene. Or worse. And if Jim comes, he's going to charge in there loaded for bear. That won't be any good either. Besides, who's to say they won't hurt him before his father could get here? We can't wait. We have to try this."

Drawing a deep breath, Selene nodded. "Okay, let's do it." She opened the driver's door and got in.

Angela was in over her head and she hated it. Vinnie had promised her that nothing bad would happen to Tyler. His plan, the way he'd laid it out to her, had made such perfect sense she couldn't imagine anything going wrong with it. They would take Tyler just for a little while. Just long enough to make Jim pull his testimony. When the charges against Vin were officially dropped, every i dotted and every t crossed, his lawyer would call him on his cell phone to let him know, and they would return Tyler and go back to their lives.

Vinnie had painted such a beautiful picture of the way her life would be once he was in the clear and they could be married. His home was like a Hollywood dream house-he'd shown it to her once. He had a pool and everything. And cars and money. He traveled all around the world, could buy just about anything he wanted.

It all seemed so perfect.

But now she was beginning to doubt Vinnie's promises-mostly because she'd caught him putting Tyler into his oversized suitcase. And she couldn't for the life of her think of any reason why he would do something like that, unless it was just to make sure Tyler would fit. And that scared her. It scared her enough to make her wonder if Jim had been telling the truth about what had happened to his partner, Colby. Had the man who'd taken Colby away from there actually murdered him? On Vinnie's order? Vinnie would deny it if she asked and he would probably convince her he was telling the truth.

God, could Jim have been right about Vinnie all along?

She needed to ask Vinnie about it. But she couldn't very well bring the subject up in front of the kid. It would scare him.

She felt bad. The last thing she wanted was to cause her son more pain.

She wished she could get Vinnie alone. Maybe she was reading him all wrong. Maybe he could explain what he was doing, convince her it was all innocent. She wanted to be convinced, she really did.

Licking her lips, she watched the kid playing video games on the TV. He was pretty involved. She sighed and got up, heading into the bathroom and pulling the door shut behind her.

Then she frowned, because she glimpsed something outside.

What was that?

She crept closer to the window. Took a quick look outside but couldn't see anyone. Still, when she'd first come in she could have sworn someone was looking into the bathroom window.

Pursing her lips, she looked at the lock on the window. Maybe someone was trying to get in. To rescue Tyler.

She called to Vinnie. She had to talk to him and it had to be now.

He came in, looking at her and frowning.

"Close the door, I have to talk to you."

He didn't. "Just keep it down. I don't want the kid running out the front door on us."

"Hell, Vinnie, he can't even walk without those braces on his legs. Just close the door."

Frowning, he closed the door but not tightly. She drew a breath. "I been thinking," she said, "about what's gonna happen...after."

"Aw, hon, I've told you over and over what's gonna happen. You're gonna be like a queen. Everything you ever wanted-"

"Not that. I mean...Vinnie, Tyler's seen you. He could pick you out of a lineup, you know. He even knows your first name. Honey, what's to stop the cops from dropping the kiddie-porn charges on you, only to slap you with a kidnapping charge once we get home?"

He licked his lips, seemed to search her face.

"I know you've thought of it too. That's why you were making sure the kid's...body...would fit in the case. That's what you were doing, wasn't it?"

He lowered his head. "Just as a precaution, hon. Just in case."

She nodded. "You can't leave him alive, can you, Vinnie?"

"Angie, Angie, baby, don't you want all the things we've talked about? The kid's not right. His life is hell anyway. If I do have to off him, I'd be doin' him a favor."

She felt tears spring into her eyes and lowered her head quickly. "I know. I know you're right. I mean, I don't think we have any choice here." She lifted her eyes again, searching his. "Do we?"

"If there's another way, I promise..."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Vinnie."

"You gonna be okay with this?"

She made her face hard, nodded once. "Hell, I'll have to be. Doesn't look like we have much of a choice at this point, do we?"

"That's my good girl. Here, babe." He handed her the case. "Do a little more blow. It'll help." Then he left the bathroom and closed the door.

She looked at the case that held the drug she so craved. Vinnie didn't have any doubt she'd snort a line or two and come out of the room too high to care much whether he murdered her own offspring. Hell, why should he think any differently? She hadn't acted like a mother since Tyler had been born.

She wanted the cocaine so badly her hands were shaking. But not yet. Soon, she promised herself. But not just yet. She set the case down and turned to the window. Then she unlocked it and pushed it open. She still couldn't see anyone, but she whispered all the same. "I'm gonna run Tyler a bath. And I'm gonna keep Vinnie in the other room while he takes it. Get the kid out of here if you can."

She closed the window again but she didn't turn the lock. Then she brushed the tears from her eyes and returned to the case she'd left sitting on the bathroom sink. She did a line for courage. Then she went back into the room.