She sent up a little prayer. If he’s gonna say no, please just let him say no. Don’t let him start yelling and screaming. Katie’s seen too much trouble already today. And I feel I’m about to break into like a million or two pieces.

She knocked. She waited but no one answered. As she was about to try again, the door swept open.

He was big, like her Dad had been, but older, heavier, grayer, with lots of new lines visible through the white three-day stubble on his cheeks.

But his heavy red-and black plaid shirt and green work pants were the same as they’d always been, and his blue eyes were as sharp as ever.

An ache started deep in her chest. Jesus, he reminded her of Dad.

He stared at her and said, “What do you want?”

“Uncle Luke? It’s me. Poppy.” His expression never changed. “Poppy who?” The ache grew as she wondered. Is this how he’s gonna play it? Like I don’t exist.

“Your… your niece. Poppy Mulliner. Mark’s little girl.”

He squinted at her. “You ain’t little. And you don’t look like no Poppy I ever knew.”

The ache deepened. Don’t do this to me. Uncle Luke. I got no place else to go.

“It’s me, Uncle Luke. I… I like need a place to stay.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “The Poppy I knew ran off and left her father alone. She as much as killed him. Then she didn’t even bother to show up for his funeral.”

“I didn’t—”

“I hope you’re not telling me you’re that Poppy.”

This wasn’t working. She knew she should go now. No sense trying to say any more to this stone-faced man. But she had to tell him…

“I guess I am that Poppy, and I guess I’m not. Not anymore. A lot’s happened since I left. Most of it bad. I need some help now. I thought I could like come back here. I thought maybe you’d…” The ache had moved up to her throat and was pulling it tight. Almost too tight to talk. He was turning her away; no more than she deserved. She should have known shouldn’t have even bothered coming here…

She just couldn’t believe how much this hurt.

She took one look last look at Uncle Luke before turning away, and thought she saw a softening in his eyes.

“That your kid?” he said, jutting his chin at Katie.

Poppy shook her head. Don’t ask me about Glory! She felt the tears welling in her eyes, spilling over. Her voice sounded like a gasp.

“No. She died… when she was three months.” He looked stricken.

“Dead?”

She couldn’t talk about Glory. She had to get away from here before she made a complete Appleton of herself.

“Sorry to bother you. Uncle Luke.” She couldn’t say any more. As she lifted Katie and took her first steps back to the truck, she heard a tortured sound. Almost like a… hiccup.

She looked back at Uncle Luke and saw him leaning against the doorjamb, his face all screwed up and his mouth turned way down at the corners.

Through her blurred eyes he looked just like the sad mask she’d seen outside theaters. His chest heaved and he made another sound—this was a sob.

And then he was motioning her toward him. She stepped back up on the stoop and he enfolded her in his arms, pressing her against him. She felt his chest begin to heave.

“Oh, Poppy,” he said, his voice high and strange. “I miss him. Oh, God, you got no idea how much I miss your dad.” And then they were both crying—loud, wracking wails and sobs.

And for the first time in days. Poppy felt safe.

She was home.

19

“I don’t get it,” Vanduyne said, packing back and forth in the Pineconer Motel parking lot. “Why are we waiting for tomorrow? We should be doing something.”

Bob Decker saw Canney make a little “be my guest” gesture. Bob sighed.

Maybe it had been a mistake bringing Vanduyne along, but he did feel he owed the guy something. And besides, this was the best way of keeping the doc under control. “We are doing something. Doc,” Bob said. “We’ve got men checking out Sooy’s Boot right now, getting the lay of the land.”

“They should be doing more than that. And why aren’t we there instead of way the hell out here in Tuckerton or whatever this place is called?”

“First of all,” Bob said, “do you have any idea how many Mulliners there are in these parts? Take a look at the phone book later—and those are just the ones with phones. We have to get census records to find the others, and even then we won’t have all of them. Second, they don’t have a motel in Sooy’s Boot, or anywhere near it. And third…” Bob gestured at the pine woods that surrounded the motel, seeming to grow thicker by the minute as the light faded. “Look around you. Doc. This may be New Jersey, and you may be just thirty or forty miles from Philadelphia and the northeast corridor, but you are on the edge of very deep woods. Thousands of square miles of scrub pine. No streetlights out there. No street signs. Most of the roads are unpaved, and the ones that are don’t even have lines down the middle. People get lost out there in broad daylight. What do you think we’re going to accomplish in the dark? Poppy Mulliner could be hiding anywhere.”

“So we just give up?”

“You know damn well we’re not giving up. We—” He capped his anger; the guy was half crazy worrying about his kid. “While we’re questioning all the Mulliners we can find, a pair of helicopters from Lakehurst Naval Air Station will be flying a grid pattern over the area looking for that red panel truck.” Bob wished he could set up a full-scale search—bring in state cops, the county sheriff, the National Guard—but he still had a mandate to keep a low profile. “But we need light. When that sun comes up, you’ll see plenty of action. We’re going to run a finetooth comb through these woods tomorrow. We’ll find her.”

“If she’s here,” Vanduyne said.

“Oh, she’s here,” Canney said. “We would have caught her if she tried running north or south. She knows these woods, and she knows she can hide here. But not for long.”

“So get some sleep,” Bob told Vanduyne. “We’re up and moving at the crack of dawn.”

Vanduyne hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, then shrugged and headed for his room.

“Finally,” Canney said. “And I thought my little Martha was tough to get to bed.”

“Let’s get back in the car,” Bob said. “I heard from Jim Lewis.”

Canney’s expression brightened. “He got to the remailer?”

Bob nodded but didn’t speak until they were safely cocooned in the car.

“I don’t know how he did it and I didn’t ask, but I suspect he had somebody sneak in and copy the database from the remailer’s server. Whatever, they found a ‘Snake’ account with an IDT return address. IDT was very cooperative. Turns out ‘Snake’ is the handle of an ‘Eric Garter’ who pays for his Internet services with his Visa card. The Visa bills go to a mail drop. The house address in the Visa computer is a fake. ‘Eric Garter’ doesn’t exist.”

“ ‘Garter?’” Canney said. “As in ‘Snake?’ Shit.” He rubbed his face. “My news isn’t so good either. I had a long talk with Trevor. He says the only one who trailed Vanduyne to Atlantic City was his ex.”

“He’s got to be wrong.”

“That’s what I said, but he told me there were times when he and Vanduyne and the ex were the only cars on the road. No way anybody else followed. He was pretty adamant about that. And Trevor’s damn good.”

A worm wriggled through Bob’s gut. “You know what you’re saying.”

“Yeah. Someone’s rotten.”

“But only three of us knew.”

“All right. Let’s look at that. Let me ask you a question: Is the Secret Service going to be hurt by decriminalization?”

“Hell, no. We’ll probably have to beef up to provide extra security.”

“Right. And as far as the Bureau is concerned, drugs are mostly a sideline. So our appropriations won’t be much affected.”

“Stop,” Bob said. “I know where you’re going and—?”

“Who in federal law enforcement gets hurt the most, Bob?”