“Trish,” she heard herself whisper.

Mary ran back to the car in the rain, hardly feeling the chilly drops. The sight of the blood had set something loose inside her. Her worst fears. She ached to find Trish. It wasn’t a lot of blood. It hadn’t been a mortal wound. Maybe she was still alive.

Mary hit the gas. She had to tell Brinkley about the house and the blood. He would know what to do. She fumbled for her cell phone as she drove, then pressed in his cell number, heading for the main road, which she remembered was off to the left. The call connected, and she waited while it rang and rang.

“Please pick up, Reg,” she said, but the call went to voicemail. She cursed to herself, then waited for his message to end. “I found Bobby’s house in the Poconos, but no Trish. Call as soon as you can.”

She pressed End, taking one turn in the woods, then another. Should she call 911, for the local police? Did that make any sense? Maybe. She pressed 911 as she drove.

“What is…emergency?” the dispatcher asked when the call connected, but Mary could barely hear her for the static and the rain.

“I was just at 78 Tehanna Lane in Bonnyhart and I believe a woman may have been injured, if not killed in that house. She’s been missing for two days and her name is Trish Gambone.”

“Did you…see…woman?” the dispatcher asked, breaking up.

“No, but I saw her blood.”

“Who…you, miss?”

Mary filled her in, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Hello? Hello?”

“Miss…you must…cell phone. You’ve reached the Bruman Police… New York.”

“What?”

“We must be the nearest…relay station…not a bona fide emergency… Pennsylvania State Police…they can follow up.” The dispatcher gave Mary the state police number, and she repeated it while she drove, then pressed it in and waited for it to connect.

“Pennsylvania State Police,” the new dispatcher answered, and the connection was improved, but still not good. Mary had just begun when the dispatcher cut her off. “Excuse me, but we’re stretched pretty thin tonight with this weather, and it doesn’t sound like we need to send a car over there tonight.”

“But you do. She could be in the vicinity, still alive. She could be hidden somewhere or even buried alive.” Mary had been spinning nightmare scenarios in the back of her mind since she’d seen that blood. “I almost got out and started looking myself.”

“I’m sorry, but it sounds as if the Philadelphia police are handling the matter, and we wouldn’t interfere with them.”

“But the house is up here. I think he brought her here, and I can’t reach anybody in Philly.”

“Miss, please give me your name and number and we’ll call you as soon as we can.”

“When will that be?” Mary sensed she was pressing a lost cause but she couldn’t help herself.

“Tomorrow, business hours. That’s the best I can do for you, miss.”

“Okay, thanks.” Mary gave her the information, then hung up, and when she set the cell on the passenger seat, she looked up and realized she didn’t know where she was. She slowed to a stop at an intersection of two gravel roads, disoriented in the woods and the rain, then pulled over and flicked on the interior light to read the realtor’s map. She traced the route from Bonnyhart with a finger, then looked around for a road sign. Rain pounded the windshield, and she could barely see outside. There were no street signs. She couldn’t use the map if she didn’t know where she was.

She set the map aside, switched off the light, and drove farther, sensing that the main road had been in this direction. She tried to plug the street name into the BlackBerry but didn’t have enough info to retrieve the map. Last, she tried to call Judy to tell her what was going on and ask her to help, but there was no answer and the phone kept cutting out. Fifteen minutes later, Mary still hadn’t hit any paved road. She must have been wrong. She started to panic a little. Where was she? How had she gotten so turned around? She thought the turnpike was off this way, but she’d been mistaken. She checked the dashboard clock. Almost midnight.

Brinkley still hadn’t called her back. She took a right, then another right when she saw some lights through the trees, then kept on the roads that headed toward the lights, vowing to buy herself a navigation system when she got back to the city. In another half hour, she saw the lights getting closer. They were the lights of a snowmobile and used-tractor dealership, but up ahead twinkled new lights.

“Yay!” Mary shifted upward in the seat and hit the gas, feeling reassured as she took a right onto a paved road, which counted as progress. Ahead was an auto-body shop and a hunting-supplies store, both closed, but at least she was out of the woods. The sky glimmered gray up ahead, and she guessed it was the reflected lights of a town or maybe from the turnpike. She breathed easier and accelerated, and when she took a left turn, found herself behind another vehicle, an old red Jeep.

“Mirabile dictu,” Mary said, a little Latin for the road, and honked to get his attention. She wasn’t too proud to ask for directions, but the Jeep driver must have misunderstood her, because he sped up. She honked again, more lightly this time, and the driver stuck his hand out the window and flashed her the bird.

Mary kept heading toward the light, growing brighter in the sky. On the left, down the road, was a blinking sign for a cheesy motel that read EZ-Stop, which she took as a good sign that she was going the right way. Another car pulled out from a side road in front of the Jeep, and she began to relax as they slowed to a stop to permit the car to turn onto another dirt road.

Mary glanced idly at the motel, left over from the sixties but trying to be modern. Its sign read AIR COND, C BLE TV, in front of the space-age building, and its rooms overlooked the parking lot. The all-glass office was barely lit, though the lot was almost full, probably with travelers too wise to drive on such an awful night. Mary squinted through the rain, and her eye caught one of the cars parked near the front. Its distinctive European grille stuck out in a lot crowded with older American SUVs and trucks. It was a new black BMW.

Mary wiped the steam off her window and double-checked. The shiny grille winked at her from the parking lot. She had been right, but she didn’t know if it mattered. There were lots of black BMWS in the world, and if not in this part of the world, then easily off the turnpike.

But when the Jeep took off, Mary turned left into the motel lot.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

M ary entered the lot and pulled into a parking space beside the BMW, then cut the ignition, eyeing the car. It glistened darkly, its inky hood slick with rain, and it had been parked by reversing into the space with its grille facing front. She looked at the other cars. All of them had been parked the normal way, with their back bumpers facing front. She herself never reversed into a space because she was the world’s worst reverser. Why would somebody park that way? To hide the BMW’s license plate.

She peered through the porthole she’d made in her window. She couldn’t see inside the BMW because of the darkness and rain. She checked the lot behind her, which was quiet, and there were only a few lights on in the rooms. The place was silent and still, with mostly everyone asleep. She grabbed her trusty flashlight, switched it on, and shined it on the front seat of the BMW, then the backseat. The circle of light wandered over plush black leather upholstery and gleaming chrome appointments on the console, and ended in a crowded ashtray, slid partway open.

Hmm. Other than the cigarettes, there was nothing to link the car to Bobby, and lots of people smoked. She got out her purse hat, her nice Coach bag practically ruined, checked behind her car again to see if anybody was watching, then climbed out with her flashlight. She let her car door close softly, slipped between the two cars, and sneaked to the back of the BMW, where she checked the license plate: FG-938. It was a Pennsylvania plate, which made sense, and the number meant nothing to her, since the Mean Girls hadn’t known Bobby’s plate number. The car could have come from anywhere. Pennsylvania was a big state. She directed the light to the back of the car and the shimmer of the chrome plaque surrounding the license plate. De Simone BMW. Marlton, NJ.