He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he had the right to ask for. She’d given him honesty, and that was a start. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Are you all right?”

Alex glanced up at Luke as she found her migraine medicine in her purse. For a few hours, she’d had hope of finding Bailey. Now that hope was dashed. “No, I’m not. Turn around, Luke.”

His black brows bunched. “What?”

“I have to shoot this in my thigh and I don’t want you seeing my underwear. Turn around.” Coloring slightly, he complied, and Alex lowered her slacks enough to jab the pen in her bare thigh. She adjusted her clothes, then looked at Luke’s back. Even from behind him she could tell he was scanning the countryside, alert and watching.

Mansfield was still out there, and he’d killed one man. Maybe more. A shiver ran down her back as the hairs on her neck lifted. It was probably just the house scaring her, she thought. Mansfield was probably miles away. Still, as she’d told Daniel, she wasn’t stupid. She looked at Daniel’s keys in her hand and knew what she’d do.

“Can I turn around?” Luke asked.

“No.” Alex opened Daniel’s trunk, retrieved her gun, and awkwardly slipped it behind her waistband. She closed the trunk, feeling no safer. “Now you can turn around.”

Luke did so, giving her a pointed look. “Keep your eyes open if you need to use it. I’m sorry about your stepsister,” he added quietly. “So is Daniel. Really.”

“I know,” she said, and remembering the hurt in his eyes, she knew it was true. He’d done his job, but Bailey would be dead just the same. Nobody wins. She was spared further reply by the emergence of Daniel and Susannah from the house. She gave him his keys and he locked the front door.

“Let’s go back,” Daniel said, his expression flat, and Alex wondered what Daniel and Susannah had discussed-and what they had not.

Friday, February 2, 3:00 p.m.

Frozen in place, Bailey waited for Loomis to give her away. Her heart pounded like a wild thing. So close. She’d come so close… Beside her, the girl started to cry.

Then, to her shock, Loomis put his finger over his lips. “Follow the trees,” he whispered. “You’ll find the road.” He pointed to the girl. “How many more in there?”

Bailey clenched her eyes shut. All gone. “None. He killed them all. All except her.”

Loomis swallowed. “Then go. I’ll go get my car and meet you by the road.”

Bailey held the girl’s hand tight. “Come on,” she whispered. “Just a little bit longer.”

The girl still cried softly, but Bailey couldn’t let herself feel sympathy. She couldn’t let herself feel anything. She just needed to keep moving.

Now that was interesting, Mack thought, watching Loomis point Bailey and the other girl toward freedom. The man was actually doing his job. For once in his life Frank Loomis was actually serving and protecting. He waited until Loomis was a few feet away before stepping into his path. He held his gun steady and Loomis stopped dead.

Loomis’s eyes rose to his face, recognition instantly dawning. “Mack O’Brien.” His jaw tightened. “I guess it goes without saying that you’re not in prison anymore.”

“Nope,” Mack said cheerfully. “One-third served.”

“So it’s been you, all along.”

There was satisfaction in his smile. “All along. Give me your guns, Sheriff. Oh, wait, you’re not a sheriff anymore.”

Loomis’s lips thinned. “I’m being investigated, not tried.”

“Like there’s a difference in this town? Give me your guns,” he repeated deliberately. “Or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“You’re going to anyway.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you can help me.”

Loomis’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

“I want Daniel Vartanian here. I want him to see this operation firsthand and to catch them red-handed. If you give him all this and Bailey, that should be enough to influence your trial. I mean, investigation.”

“That’s all I have to do? Get Daniel here?”

“That’s all.”

“And if I refuse?”

He pointed at Bailey and the girl, picking their way through the woods on bare and bloody feet. “I raise the alarm and Bailey and the girl die.”

Loomis’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a sonofabitch.”

“Thank you.”

Dutton, Friday, February 2, 3:10 p.m.

“How’s your headache?” Daniel asked.

“I hit it in time. I’m fine,” Alex said, keeping her eyes on the window where Dutton’s Main Street wound by. She should apologize to him, she knew. She’d hurt him when he was just doing his job. But, dammit, she was angry. And helpless, which made her even angrier. Not trusting her voice or her words, she kept her mouth firmly closed.

After another few minutes of silence Daniel hissed a curse. “Could you just yell at me, please? I’m sorry about Bailey. I don’t know what else to say.”

The wall holding her fury broke. “I hate this town,” she gritted from behind clenched teeth. “I hate your sheriff and the mayor and everyone that should have done something. And I hate-” She broke it off, breathing hard.

“Me?” he asked quietly. “Do you hate me, too?”

Trembling, eyes burning, she rested her forehead against the car window. “No. Not you. You were doing your job. Bailey got caught in the cross fire. I’m sorry for what I said. This isn’t your fault.” She turned her face so that the window cooled her flushed cheek. “I hate myself,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “I should have said something back then. I should have done something. But I curled up into a little ball and hid it all away from the world.”

His fingertips brushed against her arm, then fell away. “Last night you said we couldn’t blame ourselves,” he said.

“That was last night. This is today, when I have to think of a way to tell Hope her mommy’s never coming home.” Her voice broke and she didn’t care. “I don’t blame you, Daniel. You played this exactly the way you had to. But now I have to go on and so does Hope. And that scares the hell out me.”

“Alex. Please look at me. Please.”

His expression was one of tortured misery and her heart broke even more. “Daniel, I don’t blame you. Really. I don’t.”

“Maybe you should. I’d prefer it to this.”

“To what?”

His hands clenched the wheel. “You’re pulling away from me. Last night it was we have to go on. Today you’re back to doing it all by yourself. Dammit, Alex. I’m here and nothing for me has changed in the last hour. But you’re pulling away from me.” He flinched. “Goddammit,” he swore bitterly and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, sending plastic gloves everywhere. “Vartanian.”

He went still and immediately the car began to slow. “How?” he demanded.

Something was wrong. More wrong, anyway. Daniel pulled to the shoulder as she nervously picked up the scattered gloves, tucking them into her own jacket pocket.

“Where?” he bit out. “No fucking way. I come with backup or I don’t come at all.” His jaw cocked. “No, I don’t guess I do trust you. At one time I did. But not anymore.”

Frank Loomis. Alex leaned closer, trying to overhear. Daniel was patting his pockets. “Can you get me a pen?” he asked, and she dug one from her purse. He pulled his notebook from his shirt pocket. “Where exactly?” He scribbled an address with a frown. “I’d forgotten about that place. That at least makes sense. Okay. I’m coming.” He hesitated. “Thank you.”

He did an abrupt U-turn, making Alex grab for something to hold on to. “What is it?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.

He flicked on his lights. His speedometer had already climbed to eighty.

“That was Frank. He said he’s found Bailey.”

Alex sucked in a breath. “Alive?”

Daniel’s jaw was taut. “He says so.” He pressed a button on his phone. “Luke, I need you to turn around and meet me at…” He held the phone to Alex. “Tell him the address. Tell him it’s out past the old O’Brien mill. Susannah will know where that is.”