Tess jolted when her cell phone rang.

“Tess, it’s me.” Gabe’s familiar voice seemed to fill the house, to warm her, even though he sounded all business now. “I’m going to talk to Sam Jeffers, John Hillman and Dane Thompson, separately and on my own, so Vic won’t spook them. I want you to stay put until you get your power restored and—”

“I see the repair truck in my driveway.”

“Good. Jace is on his way to take paint scrapings from the telephone pole for Mike—he’s coming back here today—before the repairmen handle it or climb it if they put it back up.”

“Gabe, I think I should go with you to see those three men. If not, I’ll drive to their places on my own, just to see if anything jogs my memory.”

“What? No way you’re heading alone to their properties! Tess, I’m not going for a good-time chat. I’m checking to see if they have alibis, at least for the time you were harassed last night, not to mention when Sandy was taken.”

“Well, if I shouldn’t go alone, I should go with you. We’ll tell Sam Jeffers that I just learned he tried to track me with whatever dog he had twenty years ago and wanted to thank him. I assume you’re going to show John Hillman the stuffed dog that was on my property, so I’d have a natural stake in that.”

“Tess, I don’t—”

“Of course, you’re probably right that I shouldn’t go with you to see Dane, so we can compromise on that, and I’ll just go on the first two visits with you.”

“I’m trying to keep you safe and—”

“But last night shows I’m really not safe, not until we find whoever took me, Jill, Sandy—maybe Amanda. It’s hardly some high school kids, even if they are the ones who put graffiti on the rocks near the waterfall. And I don’t think my lights out and a dead dog are just someone’s sick idea of an early Halloween prank.”

She heard him muttering something. To himself? To Vic?

To Vic, she realized, as she heard his voice in the background. “Then let her go. Something’s got to unlock her memory. She’s still the best chance we’ve got.”

Gabe sounded really mad—but controlled—as he spoke again. “I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes. We’ll stop to talk to the electrical guys, then head for Jeffers’s place so you can ‘thank him,’ and we’ll see how that goes. Then maybe you’ll go with me to Hillman’s taxidermy shop, his little house of horrors. You won’t like it there, Tess.”

“I may not recall where I was held when I was kidnapped, but it was a house of horrors. I’m sure it was, but I’m desperate to remember it—and I will! I’ll be waiting for you here.”

He didn’t even say goodbye. He was angry with her, trapped into letting her help today, probably because of Vic rather than her arguments, but she thought she’d done okay standing up to him.

She got her things together in case he just dropped her at her house later, went to the bathroom, then paced in big circles again, waiting for him. Despite having her warm jacket on, Tess shivered. Had Gabe’s mother paced just like this, right here, waiting for her husband? This house, any one where the family had loneliness and conflict, could be a house of horrors.

* * *

“About Sam Jeffers’s place,” Gabe said. They were heading out of town toward the southeastern foothills after confirming that her power would be back on line soon. “Other than his cell phone, the guy lives like the early settlers. His Appalachian roots run deep. He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere around, has several small, old lean-to-type cabins in the woods, where he camps and hunts.”

“I’m pretty sure I was kept in a house, not at some campsite,” Tess said.

“We’ll look at his main place, where he breeds and trains his hounds. He’ll be there, I think, because, according to Marva, he, Hillman and Dane just got back from the woods, where they were looking at a wounded stag Sam had cornered but not killed.”

“Cornered but not killed,” she repeated. “I...I hope Sandy Kenton’s being kept alive like I was. Jill too, of course—and Amanda, if she was kidnapped instead of snatched by her father. But why would someone take a third child if Jill was still...”

“Yeah. Assuming, of course, that whoever took Sandy out of the shop uptown in broad daylight is the same person who took you and Jill. But a copycat crime like this seems unlikely. I think we’re still after one person, maybe with an accomplice. So far, no real leads from Jace’s questioning folks who were in and out of that back alley when Sandy disappeared. Even our all-seeing, all-knowing veteran librarian didn’t see anything unusual. It’s almost like Sandy vanished into thin air.”

“And, in exchange, someone left that scarecrow.”

Gabe turned the cruiser into a narrow lane lined by buckeye trees. They always dropped their leaves early, so the bright autumn colors of the hills were muted to dry, brown foliage here. Some of the trees were even stripped of leaves, so it seemed their naked, crooked arms reached out. The narrow dirt lane twisted, climbed a bit.

“Oh, perfect,” Tess said. “Like a scene in a scary movie. A mailman comes up here every day?”

“No, there’s a box we passed down on the road. And, I’m surprised to see, a place for the Chillicothe newspaper. Can’t believe a loner and wanderer like Sam keeps up with the news.”

“Unless he likes to read about his handiwork.”

“You know, you and Vic would get along real well. He suspects everyone, probably even the mailman and paperboy.”

A one-story house with peeling paint came into view. It had a long side section that looked added on and was painted such a clean, new white it made the house itself look even dingier.

“That painted part is the canine wing,” Gabe said. “Sam keeps his dogs under a roof. Sometimes I think he treats them better than people.”

He pulled into a small, turnaround loop and killed the engine. The minute Tess opened her door, she heard barking. “I hope there’s not a guard dog loose,” she said.

“Hasn’t been before. And probably not so a visitor doesn’t get hurt, but one of his dogs. He’s real fussy about who buys and adopts them.”

Just as Tess closed the passenger door, she glimpsed the garbage bag with the mounted pit bull Gabe had put on the floor of the backseat. She imagined it was barking too. She knew he planned to show it to John Hillman but not Sam.

“Maybe he’s asleep or not here,” she said, surprised Sam didn’t realize he had visitors with all the noise.

“I see his truck’s in the old barn over there, but that doesn’t mean—”

Sam came to the door and walked out with a single hound behind him. Tess was relieved to see he was unarmed. She had the funniest feeling about this place, even though it wasn’t familiar to her.

“Hey, Sheriff. Heard you drive in. How you doin’? And that you, Miss Lockwood?”

They all shook hands and went through the usual greetings and small talk. In the old days in the hills, to “set a spell and get caught up” was essential before getting down to business.

“Tess wanted to come along just to say thanks for trying to track her years ago,” Gabe explained since the talk had mostly been between the two men—also hill-country custom. “And I sure appreciate the effort with Boo the other day,” he said, patting the dog on the head. “Hear you found a wounded stag up yonder.”

“Did. Took John and Dane with me, but it died. John won out to claim it, though I get the venison. It was hurtin’ real bad when we got there, so Dane used some of that pain med stuff to get it to stop thrashing around. You know, what he uses on people’s pets in agony so he can set a leg and such.”

As they talked, Tess glanced around. Surely she would have recalled yelping dogs if she’d ever been kept here. But was it at all suspicious that it took Sam a while to come out to greet them, as if maybe he had to hide someone or something first? He and Gabe were talking about trapping, but Gabe managed to get the conversation around to when Sam left the area with John and Dane and when they came back. He was probably going to ask the other two men the same to see if their information matched.