FRANK got another call as we headed home that night, from his new lieutenant, Jake Masuda. I caught Frank’s attention and said, “I wonder if the woman Gerry Serre dated before he was murdered bore any resemblance to Cleo Fletcher?”

“We do sometimes think of these things,” he said to me, and went back to talking to Jake.

Well, if he was going to be like that…

When he hung up, he told me there was a lead on the third child, Troy Fletcher. “A preschool teacher called to say she remembered him as Troy Sherman, one of her brightest, so I’m going to go talk to her tomorrow.”

I smiled and wished him luck, and if my tone made him suspicious, he didn’t say anything.

At home, we found that Caleb and Ben had left, and Ethan had fallen asleep. I made one more phone call, to a night-owl friend down in San Diego, Tonya Pearsley. She’s a school psychologist. Apparently my misadventures had made the news down there, so she was glad I called. I was glad she already had some background on the day’s events. I asked her about IQ testing of young children, and she verified that there were intelligence tests for preschoolers.

“Yes, but it’s not foolproof. There is some question about the reliability of the results based on socioeconomic factors and the home environment. You can’t tell how bright a child is just from a test score, you have to look at the whole child. In general, if you wait until a child is in second or third grade, you’ll get more reliable information from testing.”

“But it can be done?”

“Yes. Beyond reliability, though, the controversy surrounding the testing of preschoolers is mostly over how the information from the tests is going to be used.”

“You mean questions over whether to put kids in accelerated classes early on?”

“Partly, yes. Private testing is becoming more popular with parents who want to push their kids, although the schools are more inclined to try to use the tests to identify kids with learning problems, so that we can help them as soon as possible. Is this associated with a private school in the area?”

“You saw the kids in the newscast. They weren’t all at one private school-in fact, they were home-schooled. But they seem to be exceptionally bright-I mean off-the-charts smart. It’s the one factor I know they all have in common.”

“So you wonder who identified them as being so bright at such a young age? You’re probably looking for an educational psychologist. Not that many people do testing of preschoolers, so that may help you.”

I thanked her and promised we’d try to get down that way sometime soon.

When I hung up, I realized Frank had been eavesdropping.

“Sorry I was sarcastic earlier,” he said, proving he does figure out some things on his own. He had an impish smile on his face as he apologized, though, so he hardly presented a portrait of contrition. Alas, I’m a sucker for that smile.

“You want to know what Tonya said, I suppose.”

The smile grew. “Yes. But I really am sorry.”

“Hmm. If you hadn’t driven all the way out to Antelope Valley and hung around with me in the newsroom, I’d have my doubts. But you’ve scored big points.” I explained what Tonya had said. “Roy and Bonnie took Carrie to live with them in Huntington Beach. She’s especially bright. But then, three other especially bright kids from Las Piernas came to live with them-I find it too unlikely those are chance adoptions, especially given the cloistered lifestyle these kids were leading.”

“I agree. We aren’t talking about two people who were blithely unaware that someone was handing off stolen kids to them.”

“Caleb’s sister was a relative, so even if Richard Fletcher was estranged from the extended Fletcher family, Giles or someone else could have observed her intelligence. I keep wondering who might have flagged these two boys for them-identified them as especially bright.”

“I’ll ask the preschool teacher I’m meeting tomorrow about who did Troy’s testing.”

“No AMBER Alert on these kids?” I asked.

“That was debated by the task force they’ve formed on these cases. You know an AMBER Alert only gets used if the child may be seriously injured or killed-no one wants the public to become complacent about those alerts, so they try not to overuse them. You ask me, Roy Fletcher conspired to kill his wife and represents a threat to the kids. He could be suicidal at this point. But given everything Carrie said about the family, the higher-ups in the task force decided it was parental abduction. I hope that won’t come back to bite them.”

Not wanting the children to come to harm, I hoped so, too.

We agreed to call it a night. As we got into bed Frank said he’d like it very much if I’d stay away from people with guns for a while, but I reminded him that in that case, I would have to avoid him and most of his friends. So he amended the request: I was to avoid anyone with a gun who was not officially on the list of Frank Harriman Approved Gun Owners, which was a pretty darned short one. I said that was fine with me, really.

CHAPTER 52

Wednesday, May 3

9:30 A.M.

SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS

GENIE had fed the boys breakfast an hour ago and was now trying to get them to settle down enough to get their jackets and mittens on. Dad and Cleo had come downstairs just as the boys finished eating, and had a not-so-quiet argument about the TV, which had been settled with a compromise. The compromise was that the kids could go outside with Dad while Cleo watched TV. The boys wanted to stay inside and watch TV, too, of course, but Dad snapped at them and they gave up on the idea. They were always full of energy after breakfast, and now they were being little devils. It would be good to get them outside and let them run around a little.

Genie tried not to show how excited she was about going outside. She had addressed and stamped the letter, and now she had it tucked inside her jacket pocket.

The air was cold, but most of the snow was gone. A few patches could be found under the shadiest trees or near the biggest rocks. The little snowman they had built yesterday was already a lump of ice and dirt and sticks. She was glad she had used Carrie’s camera to take a picture of him before he melted.

Dad didn’t come outside right away, and so she took her chance. “Race you to the road!” she called to the boys.

They took the challenge and headed up the drive.

They had not reached the first bend when she heard Dad yell, “Kids, no!”

The boys stopped immediately, but Genie pretended she didn’t hear him. She kept on going.

“You two stay right there!” she heard Dad yell at the boys. “Genie! Genie!”

She kept running, turning up the bend, now out of sight of the cabin.

But Dad’s legs were long and it didn’t take even a minute for him to catch up to her. He grabbed hold of her arm, clutching it hard. It hurt, and something about that grip made her go crazy. All her worry, all her fears about Carrie and Mom and their family came boiling up inside her, and she did something she had never done before in her life-she tried to hurt Dad.

He was not quite on balance as he took hold of her, or it never would have worked, but she twisted and kicked and thrashed, and the combination of her movements made him stumble and fall. She fell, too, but got up faster and ran.

He quickly caught up with her again, and this time he grabbed her and completely overpowered her, pushing her to the ground, pinning her. His face, looming over hers, was red with anger.

Now she was frightened in an entirely different way.

He stood up and pulled her up by the shoulders. He shook her. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

She looked at him, wide-eyed. She nearly began to cry. This man wasn’t Dad, not the Dad she loved. At this thought, her anger rose up again and she shouted back at him, “What happened to my father?”