“I’d appreciate that.”

“But I want you to stay here until the power is restored at your place.”

She nodded. She was so exhausted her eyes almost crossed.

He went on, sounding nervous, “I’d better open up the extra bedroom for you so it heats up in there. I keep both extra rooms upstairs closed in the heating season. There’s just one bath upstairs—a half bath down here, but you’re welcome to take a shower or whatever. I’ll get some towels out.”

“Your mother would be proud of your hospitality and how great this place looks. She was always a good hostess.”

“Yeah. Still is in the trailer park where she lives in Florida. Too good a hostess at times, I guess.”

She didn’t know what he meant, but a bath and bed sounded so good. And to sleep at night in security, to feel safe, as she never quite had in the old house the three nights she’d been back, would be great—safe from everything except her feelings for Gabe.

She followed him upstairs as he opened the door to a plainly furnished bedroom. It was his boyhood one, she was sure of that, though it had been redone. It was a bit feminine, maybe in case his mother visited. So he must sleep in his parents’ larger one across the front of the house. But no, he tossed his windbreaker into the room at the back end of the hall.

“Don’t you sleep in front?” she asked, suddenly feeling awkward again as his eyes swept her. Oh, no, that over-the-waterfall sensation again. She’d been fighting it, but feelings flew between them like pounding spray.

“No, I keep that for my home office,” he said, but he didn’t open the door to give her a glimpse. “It’s bigger. I’m down the hall. I can use the bathroom downstairs, so you just go ahead.”

He got a set of towels and an extra blanket from a hall linen closet and piled them in her arms. “I’ll be getting up early,” he said. “Probably before six. If you want to join me for breakfast that’s fine. Otherwise just get what you want, and don’t go back to your house until you’re sure the power’s on,” he repeated. “Don’t answer the phone here either. Only use your cell.”

He was so close she could see how thick his eyelashes were. Little flecks of gold swam in the blue irises of his eyes. He had a slight scar on his chin—from the war?

“I can’t thank you enough,” she whispered.

“Maybe sometime,” he said. Then before she knew it was coming, he leaned forward to kiss her.

At first it was just closed lips, controlled, kind of sweet. But suddenly they crushed the stack of towels and the blanket between them, holding tight, clinging. When she clasped her arms around his neck, everything cascaded to the floor. They pressed together, chest to breasts, hips and thighs. His hands raced over her waist and back as they opened their mouths in a devouring kiss. He cupped her bottom with his hands, lifted her up against him, before setting her back, almost roughly. Both dazed and shaky, they stared wide-eyed at each other, standing a few feet apart.

“I don’t mean to take advantage of the situation,” he said, his voice raspy. “You have to be able to trust me. I made a big mistake once, mixing business with...with pleasure.”

She was breathless too, but she managed to speak. “Dating Ann or someone else?”

“Yes, Ann. I should have considered her hair-trigger-temper brothers, as well as the fact that I wasn’t that crazy about her. Besides, it hit me a few minutes ago that one of them—Jonas—raises pit bulls. I’ve been wanting to bust him for illegal dogfights. I think they have some sites in the woods, but I’ve never found the locations. And they’re very protective of Ann. I’ve been trying to back off, even before you came back, but they all think I should be full steam ahead—like just now—between us.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Despite all those words—information—he’d put out between them like a barrier, she almost threw herself into his arms again. Instead she bent to gather the linens from the floor.

“Thanks for taking me in,” she said as she forced herself to head for the bedroom he’d given her. He had taken her in, heart and soul, as the old song said. But she had to fight that sweeping need for him with all her might.

* * *

As exhausted as Tess was and as good as she felt after a hot bath in Gabe’s big bathtub, she couldn’t sleep. She prayed she would not dream of that dog, nor of the monster in the cornfield. If she screamed out in the night, would Gabe come running? She tossed and turned, thinking of her father, her sisters, the missing girls, Gabe.

She heard a voice, a young girl’s voice, muted but close. Was she dreaming? No.

She sat straight up in bed. She heard a girl’s voice coming from out in the hall.

Tess got up and wrapped the extra blanket around her like a robe. She was wearing her nightgown, but she’d forgotten her slippers. Her feet were cold on the wooden floor. Tiptoeing to the door, she opened it a crack.

Light bled from under the door of the room Gabe had said was his home office. And that’s where the voice came from, definitely a young girl’s. Could he have a TV on in there? Maybe he couldn’t sleep either.

Tiptoeing closer, she put her ear to the door.

She could hear the words clearly now. “My name is Jill Stillwell. I love puppies and to camp out with my family. I love to read books. I can read now all by myself if the books are elentory, I mean easy enough, like in elentory school. I have an older brother, Jeff, who is nice to me mostly...”

The high, sweet, little voice went on. But...but Jill Stillwell was the name of the second girl who had been abducted, taken years after Tess’s family had moved to Michigan. She sounded so real, as if she was just on the other side of this door!

Carefully, quietly, Tess turned the doorknob. She only meant to open the door a crack, but it swung inward with a loud creak. She gasped and gave a little cry at what she saw, just as Gabe turned around to glare at her.

14

“Tess!” Gabe cried as he jumped to his feet. He killed the sound track—he’d been sitting at a laptop—and came at her as if to block her from seeing what was here. Or was he going to grab her?

“I heard—I heard a girl’s voice,” she said, retreating into the hall. “Jill Stillwell’s, one of the kidnapped—”

He grasped her shoulders in hard hands. “It’s a recording her family gave me from their Facebook page. It helps me to remember.”

It scared her how she recalled that some murderers kept relics of their victims. In the brief glance into the room, she wondered if it could be like a big memory box, a memorial to the lost girls. She’d glimpsed a large blown-up picture of a child who must be Amanda Bell, next to a map with all kinds of lines and other pictures. Were there things in there about her too?

Gabe gave a huge sigh that seemed to deflate his body. His broad shoulders slumped. “You’re not dressed,” he said as his eyes went over her. “And it’s cold tonight. Go get something on so you don’t distract me even more, and I’ll show you what I’ve never shared with anyone. I do have some stuff like this at the office, but I’ve got more here—maybe it will jog something loose for you.”

Hurrying, shaking, she did as he said and joined him in the big room that had been his parents’ master bedroom. Two walls seemed dedicated to the two earliest victims, Teresa Lockwood and Jill Stillwell. He’d posted photographs of the kidnap victims and their families, with lines drawn out to what he explained was “a circle of acquaintances.” On the next wall, narrower because of windows, he’d started to put up things about the Sandy Kenton kidnapping.

Each wall was a collage of evidence. He’d written in times, places, even things like height and weight of the victims. For each, he’d posted an age-advanced photo of what she might look like now. Tess was amazed at how close to reality the one of her came.