“Ummmm…is this Dorsey?” a woman’s voice inquired.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Diane Coleman, I’m a friend of your father’s.”

Diane of the “last weekend was fun” message on her father’s answering machine?

“Yes, Diane. How are you? What can I do for you?” She immediately regretted how impatient she must have sounded, but at that moment, she was in no mood for small talk.

“Well, frankly, I’m a little concerned. About your father.”

So much for idle chitchat.

“What about my father?” Dorsey asked cautiously.

“Well, he left here yesterday morning and I haven’t heard from him since. Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, but he promised to call as soon as he got there because he knew I was worried-about where he was going and how he’d be received, you know?”

“Actually, I don’t know. Where was he going?”

“To meet with a man named Timothy Beale. He said it had to do with a case he’d handled a long time ago, and-”

“Wait, stop.” Dorsey couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Pop went to see Tim Beale?”

“Yes. And he gave me a number to call, in case I didn’t hear from him by midnight. Well, when I hadn’t, I called the number-”

“Whose number did he give you? Who did he tell you to call?”

“Someone he said he knew when he was with the FBI. John Mancini. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m getting worried and I thought maybe he’d called you.”

“I haven’t heard from him. But you’re saying he’s in South Carolina?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you to call John Mancini if you hadn’t spoken with him by midnight last night?”

“Right. And I even waited a little, I waited till almost one this morning before I called. I know I’m probably being silly, but I just feel really uneasy. I hope you don’t mind that I called you. Your number was on Matt’s phone, so I thought I’d take a chance.”

“I’m glad you did. You did exactly the right thing.” Dorsey’s mind was racing. “Did you speak with John?”

“Yes. He thanked me for calling and told me not to worry. He said he’d take care of everything.”

Dorsey had a feeling she knew how John had taken care of it.

“Diane, thanks for letting me know. I’ll check into this, and as soon as I talk to Pop, I’ll have him give you a call. Are you going to stay there at the house?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. Let me give you my cell, just in case.” Diane rattled off the number and Dorsey scribbled it on the back of a card she found in the bottom of her purse.

“Got it,” Dorsey told her. “I’ll have him get back to you.”

“Thanks, Dorsey.” She paused. “I hope we get a chance to meet sometime soon.”

“I’d like that too. Soon, I hope,” Dorsey said sincerely. Any woman who would look out for her Pop was okay in Dorsey’s book. “Look, let me see if I can catch up with Pop.”

“Right. Talk to you soon.”

Dorsey hung up, her gratitude toward Diane instantly replaced with an anger so strong she could barely see straight.

Bastard.

Shields, you bastard.

“It’s nothing,” he’d told her calmly when his phone rang just after one that morning. “Just something John wants me to check into.”

He lied to her face and never blinked. Son of a bitch.

He’d known her father had been at Tim Beale’s all this time.

It was noon, almost twelve hours later. What the hell was going on? And why was Andrew called into it? And why did she have to hear about it from her father’s…

What was Diane to Matt, anyway?

Dorsey dialed her father’s cell phone but got no answer. In spite of her earlier resolve not to, she tried Andrew again, but wasn’t at all surprised when he didn’t pick up.

“What the hell is going on, Andrew?” She all but spit her words out. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out my father is meeting with Tim Beale? You son of a bitch.”

She hung up the phone and dropped it into her bag, wishing she hadn’t disconnected quite so quickly. She had a few more curses left for Andrew.

She drummed impatient fingers on the steering wheel, then forced a few deep breaths to calm herself. She could scream and curse all she wanted later. Right now, she had to find her father and if she held on too tightly to her anger, she would be distracted from that task. Focus, she reminded herself. Find Tim Beale, and she’d find her pop.

Chief Bowden had said Tim Beale was living someplace not too far from Hatton. Had she been smart enough to make a note of it? She rummaged in her bag for her small notebook, and went back through the last entries. Naylor’s M. was noted next to Tim’s name. What the hell did the M stand for? She didn’t want to call Bowden; he’d want to know why she was asking.

She’d have to stop and ask someone, maybe at that convenience store on the way out of town, the one with the gas station attached. Surely there’d be somebody there who knew of a place called Naylor’s Something-that-began-with-M.

She hoped to God someone did, and could tell her how to get there. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to do once she arrived, but she knew she wasn’t about to sit home waiting for film at eleven.

“I’m not kidding, you assholes.” The voice from the trailer sounded shrill and short-tempered. “I told you to keep your distance. Ain’t no one coming in or going out until my momma gets here. Unfortunately for y’all, she’s driving from Kentucky so it’s going to be a while. I told you that when y’all got here. This ain’t no party, and you ain’t been invited anyway. This here’s between me and old Matt and my momma. The rest of you can all go to hell or you can hang out, but keep back from the door or I swear, I’ll put a bullet right between his eyes and be happy as shit to do it. Any questions?”

“None,” Andrew called back.

“Good. Now y’all just be quiet for a while, and no one’s going to be hurt. Just…be quiet.”

“Gotcha’,” Andrew replied in a voice too low to be heard from the trailer. He turned to John Mancini and asked, “You okay with us waiting for Jeanette Beale to arrive?”

“We don’t have much choice.” John checked his watch. “She should be here soon. We waited this long, we might as well wait it out. Not much we can do anyway, with Matt in there.”

“You think he’s armed?”

“Matt? If he was, Beale’s got whatever Matt had with him by now.”

Andrew’s phone rang and he checked the number. It was Dorsey again. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. He felt like a heel, not telling her what was going on, but John had been very specific in his instructions not to let on to Dorsey what was happening. He’d repeated it twice, as if he wasn’t sure that once had been sufficient. “You’re not to tell her anything, understand? I want as few people as possible out here. And I specifically do not want her here.”

Yeah, right. That worked. Andrew eyed the gathering crowd.

A deputy from the county sheriff’s department had been driving past and stopped to find out what was going on with all the cars out here by the trailer that sat alone on a wide vacant lot. The deputy, a hunting buddy of Tim Beale’s, was curious. Once he found out what the FBI was doing, he’d called back in to the sheriff-and anyone with a police-band radio, including the local press, heard about the FBI’s presence out at Naylor’s Marsh. From the looks of it, most of them had headed on out to take a look. John kept the locals busy by having them keep back everyone else who’d stopped by to see the show. Andrew had twice suggested to John that they let Dorsey know what was going on, and got rebuffed both times.

“I think she ought to know,” Andrew had argued.

“Not until we see what’s going down,” John said. “I don’t want Matt’s daughter here if Beale is going to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. I promised Matt I’d keep Dorsey out of it. I’ll not go back on that.”