Lucas touched the computer screen. "He says Kelly, Cash, and Warr did the kidnapping, and that Cash is a driver for the truck place. He doesn't say anything more about Joe. I think he must've got the information from Joe. Where else would he get it?"

Wilson pursed his lips. "So Joe… "

"I think Joe's outa here," Lucas said. "If Sorrell was Special Forces… maybe he had some training with pliers and fingernails."

"You don't think Joe did this?" Wilson gestured out toward the kitchen, where the two bodies still lay on the floor.

"It's possible-but how the hell would Sorrell know about Cash and Warr? I think he probably grabbed Joe when Joe came for the money," Lucas said. He looked at the note again, frowned. "I thought all the stories were about the rich girl being kidnapped on Christmas Eve, and all the gifts around the tree… "

"She was… " Wilson shook his head. "Maybe it's a typo. Maybe he meant the twenty-fourth, and typed the twenty-second."

"Pretty unlikely," Del grunted. "That's one thing you'd get right, in that kind of note."

"Those bank draft receipts, the ones that went to Vegas… " Lucas had returned them to the briefcase where he found them, to have them checked later. Now he retrieved them, and looked at the dates. "They're dated December twentieth. He took a million dollars in cashier's checks to Las Vegas on the twentieth."

"What do you think?" Wilson asked.

"Could you get one of the bank managers to check on when the drafts were cashed?" Lucas asked.

Wilson looked at his watch. "It's Saturday. Maybe. Let me call somebody."

"Maybe… " Lucas scratched his chin and looked at Del. "Maybe he was collecting money in Vegas. He got drafts from his bank, then spent three days withdrawing the money from his Vegas accounts. He was collecting cash to pay the kidnappers."

Del nodded. "Couldn't just walk into a bank and ask for a million in cash. How else would you get it? But a bunch of bank drafts for Vegas hotels… He could've even passed it off as a business thing, with the banks."

"So Tammy wasn't kidnapped on the twenty-fourth," Lucas said. "They got her sooner than that. Huh." They'd been squatting next to Mary Sorrell's computer, and now they all stood up. "But there was something that Sorrell didn't get from Joe or Cash or Warr. There must be a fourth man. Or woman. Or maybe a fourth, fifth, and sixth. Somebody who knew what it meant when Cash and Warr got hanged."

"And didn't want Sorrell talking about it," Del said. "Couldn't risk it."

"Why couldn't he risk it?" Wilson asked.

Del said, "Because he didn't know if Sorrell was finished-didn't know whether or not Sorrell had his name. Didn't know what Jane and Deon might have told him."

Wilson scratched his head and said, "Shoot," and a moment later, "Goldarnit."

Lucas said to Del, "We better get back up north."

Del nodded. "But we wouldn't get up there before dark, if we left now. We should catch a nap this afternoon, leave really early tomorrow. Three in the morning. Get there when the sun comes up. Take that little town apart."

11

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JUST after dark, Loren Singleton rolled along Highway 36, listening to the radio. He was tired, despite a long nap, from the overnight round trip to the Sorrells' and back. A snow squall bothered his windshield, little pecks and flecks of ice whirling down from the north.

He'd been horrified by the shooting, as he hadn't been by the killing of the little girls. The little girls just seemed to go to sleep-and he hadn't really done that. He'd just been there.

At the same time, there was something about the Sorrell killings that left him feeling… larger. Tougher. He tried to find the exact word: studlier? That embarrassed him, but it might be close.

The lights of Broderick came up through the blowing snow, the cafe, and the gas station, two dimly lit windows at the church, a beer sign in the bar-and then he noticed the light in the back of Calb's. The office was lit up, as though there were a meeting going on.

He pulled the Caddy into the parking lot, watched for shadows on the window-somebody looking to see who'd pulled in-and when he got none, climbed out of the car and walked over to the shop and tried the door. The door was locked, as it should be after dark on Saturday.

Still, the lights. He walked around the side of the building and peeked through a window, and found a meeting: Gene Calb, Ruth and Katina Lewis, and a black man that Singleton had never seen before. Both women had taken their coats off, as if they'd been there a while. The black man was leaning back in an office chair, idly swiveling a few inches from left to right.

Singleton watched for a while, but couldn't hear anything. Why had they left him out? Were they suspicious?

He eventually crunched back around to the Caddy, climbed inside, rolled back to get square with the overhead door, and punched the garage-door opener. As the door went up, he eased the Caddy inside, punched the remote again, and as the door started back down, got out of the car.

Calb and Katina were standing by the corner of the bay, Calb with a cup of coffee in his hand. "Hey, come on back. We're having an argument."

"Who's we?" Singleton asked.

"Me and Shawn Davis and Ruth and Katina," Calb said. "Shawn came up from KC. You heard about the Sorrell thing?"

"On the radio, a while ago," Singleton said. "What do you think?"

"That's what we're arguing about," Katina said. "I tried calling you but didn't get an answer."

"Been running around," Singleton said. He looked at the bridge of her nose, rather than in her eyes, so she wouldn't see the lie in his eyes. And he thought: Okay. They tried to call him, so they weren't cutting him out.

He started past her, but she caught his arm and stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek and asked, "You busy tonight?"

"I sure got some time if you do," he said. She stepped ahead of him and he touched her on the butt.

Inside the office, Calb introduced him to Davis: Davis was a tough-looking forty-five, not impressed by much. He lifted a hand and nodded, and Singleton gave him his best grim cowboy look. "You got any special insight into this mess?" Davis asked him in a twangy Missouri drawl. "Gene said you knew Deon and Jane and Joe as well as anyone up here."

Singleton hurried to deflect that idea. "I have no idea what's going on. I used to stop by and talk to Deon, but that was just part of my deal, you know. Keep an eye out. I keep thinking it's Joe, that maybe they had a fight or something."

"Joe's dead," Davis said bluntly. "He never went more than five miles from his mama in his life, until he come up here. Called her every day, then he talked to her one night and the next day he was gone. She hasn't heard a word since. He's dead."

"Goddamn," Calb said. He stood up and wandered in a tight circle, his hands jammed in the back pockets of his jeans. "This kidnapping… if they think it's outa here, they could be all over me. You too, Shawn. If they really started pounding my books, looking at how many people I employ and how much commercial rehab we do… they could give me some trouble."

"Might be time for a fire," Singleton said.

They all looked at him for a moment, and then Calb said, "You're not serious."

"Take care of the book problem," Singleton said.

Calb's eyes rolled heavenward, as in prayer, and he said, "It wouldn't take care of shit, Loren. You've never been a businessman-there're records all over the goddamn place. Payroll tax receipts, workman's comp, insurance, income tax. The only thing that would happen if I burned down the shop is that I'd have a burned-down shop. Then they'd really get interested. If they get really interested, they're gonna get to all of us, including you, Loren, and the women too."