Praise for Tara Taylor Quinn

“Tara Taylor Quinn’s deeply felt stories of romance and family will warm your heart.”

—Jennifer Crusie, bestselling author

“Quinn rips out her readers’ hearts, then hands them back, mended and stronger.”

—Rickey R. Mallory, Affaire de Coeur

“Quinn really pushes the envelope of romance writing. She enters territory where more cautious writers fear to tread.”

—Betty Webb, Sunday Arts, Arizona Tribune

“Tara Taylor Quinn writes with wonderful assurance and an effective, unpretentious style perfectly suited to her chosen genre. Her handling of male viewpoint is exceptional. She manages to make her heroes both intriguing and human, which isn’t always easy. She seems to genuinely like and understand men as a species, an attitude as refreshing as it is unusual.”

—Jennifer Blake, bestselling author

“Quinn’s daring plotting and careful handling of the related moral issues is extraordinary.”

—Cindy Penn, Amazon Top 50 reviewer

“Readers are always in for a treat when they pick up a book by Tara Taylor Quinn.”

—Rendezvous

“Quinn writes touching stories about real people that transcend plot type or genre.”

—Rachel Potter, All About Romance

Where the Road Ends
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Kevin, who has to endure far too many challenges for the honor of being my spouse, but who approaches every step of the journey as if it’s a privilege.

And

For Rachel, whose childhood has been unique but who doesn’t seem to resent that fact.

I love both of you with all my heart.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my “Michigan Research Family”—Alyson Hamacher, videographer extraordinaire and special vacuum coordinator; Rachel Reames, videographer, entertainer and owner of the disfigured finger; Patricia Bodell, for her notes; Kevin Reames, chauffeur, and Steve Meredith, navigator. As far as I’m concerned, the road never ends.

Thanks also to all the owners and employees of the many, many establishments we visited, some of which appear in this book. Without fail, everyone we approached was gracious, helpful and kind, from people we stopped on the street to the UPS delivery lady. Please note: while most of the places mentioned in this book are real, there were times I needed to use less-than-appealing establishments, and they are fictitious. The school in Lowell, Michigan, is also fictitious. Thanks to my in-laws, Deanna Reames and David Reames, and to Julie Greer for jumping in to help with last-minute location glitches.

And one more thank-you to all of those who supported me through this exciting opportunity: my agent, Irene Goodman; my editor, Paula Eykelhof; Debbie Macomber; Lee Anne Vangarderen for her nightly e-mails of encouragement; my many friends in Romance Writers of America; my mother and brother, Penny and Scott Gumser. Any time I started to doubt, one of you was there.

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to bring you this novel, which is very special to me. It’s one of those stories that had a life of its own from the beginning, taking me places I would never have dared to go before this. It first came about in a darkened and mostly empty theater as I sat through several nights of dance rehearsal with my daughter. I was entertaining myself, not working. I wasn’t plotting or developing characters. I never intended a book to be born. When I sat down at the computer one midnight after rehearsal, it was only to play around a little bit. How twelve pages appeared in less than an hour, I still don’t know. But they were the beginning of something that had more power over me than I could ever have imagined.

I’m partial to this story for another reason, as well. It’s set in Michigan—which I’ve always considered home. Though I’ve lived all over the country, most of my family—and my husband’s family—is still in Michigan. We own seventeen acres there, just outside Baldwin. You’ll see it about halfway through the book. And no, the owners don’t want to sell.

One more thing. I said this book took me places I wouldn’t choose to go. One of those was the world of child abduction. During the months I spent writing Where the Road Ends, researching procedures and statistics, I became concerned about my own daughter’s safety. Until I stumbled on a fairly new program sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children—Know the Rules. Know the Rules is a public-awareness campaign designed to educate and empower teens and their parents, and to help in the prevention of child abduction. I found that in educating myself about some simple rules, I could alleviate a lot of the fears I had. I was able to allow myself and my daughter to live not in fear but with confidence, because my child knew what to do if danger presented itself. You can receive a Know the Rules publication free of charge through my new Web site, www.tarataylorquinn.com, or by contacting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at www.missingkids.com.

My hope is that, empowered with knowledge, we all continue to live happy and healthy.

I love to hear from readers! You can reach me at ttquinn@tarataylorquinn.com or at P.O. Box 15065, Scottsdale, AZ 85267. You’re also invited to check out my Web site. With trivia contests, prizes, free giveaways, message boards and more, we have a lot of fun there! Come join us.

Tara

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Prologue

She was going to have to let the nanny go.

Staring out the front-room window, taking in the beautiful rolling grounds of the Wainscoat estate, Amelia reined in emotion, trading its insidious confusion for logical thought.

Would it always feel as if her life was out of control?

Or was letting Kathy go the first step toward taking charge? The beginning of a new existence for herself and her son?

Fingers trembling uncharacteristically, Amelia pushed her dark hair over her shoulders, ruining the effect Donald, her hairdresser of ten years, had so painstakingly created. And if the tears that were threatening actually fell, the time she’d spent on her artfully applied makeup would be wasted, too.

As she stood there in her slim-fitting, dove-gray designer suit waiting for Kathy to appear, Amelia tried to focus on the facts. And she remembered the last conversation—almost a year earlier—she’d had with her husband.

They’d been in her suite in the high-rise building that was home to the head office of Wainscoat Construction. After a short day at his current construction site, Johnny had come to drop off Charles before going to the dock to take the new boat for a trial run, prior to teaching Charles to water ski the following day.

“I’m a little uncomfortable with how possessive of Charles Kathy’s getting,” he’d said slowly. “It’s almost like she’s jealous of your place in his life.”

“I’ve had to remind her once or twice that as his mother, I make the decisions,” she replied. “Kathy’s very involved with him, but that’s natural, don’t you think? They spend a lot of time together.”

He’d nodded, but hadn’t looked convinced.

“Do you think there’s a problem?” she’d asked Johnny. “More than just two women being territorial?” She’d studied his face, usually able to read his thoughts.

His broad shoulders square, Johnny had shrugged. “I think it’s possible. Which is why I wanted to talk to you.”

Amelia’s stomach had started to hurt then—just as it hurt now. “So what do we do about her? It’s not like we can fire her, Johnny. She’s part of the family.”

“Well—” Johnny had drawn out the word meaningfully “—no, she’s not.”

“She’s been living with us since Charles was born.”

“She’s an employee.”

He’d been right, of course, but…

“One we’ve trusted with our son’s life,” Amelia said.

“And I think we still can, to a point.”

“To what point?”

Johnny’s eyes had been warm, concerned, as they met hers. He’d suggested they keep an eye on things. Listen carefully to everything their four-year-old son had to say.

And with that warning, she’d wanted to get rid of Kathy then and there.

“Don’t overreact, Amelia,” Johnny had said.

Her heart missed a beat now as she remembered the grin he’d given her. The one that had always melted her heart.

“I’m not suggesting anything drastic here,” he’d continued. “I don’t think it’s gotten out of hand….”

She remembered thinking, that Johnny was right. As usual.

Things hadn’t been bad enough to warrant firing Kathy. Not then.

But this past year, since Johnny’s death, the situation had changed.

At least Amelia thought it had.

Thinking back over the past months, she made a mental list of times she’d been concerned about Kathy’s actions and was surprised—and a little frightened—by how extensive the list had grown.

Most recently with Kathy’s insistence that Amelia not change the school her son was attending.

Johnny had been worried that Kathy was overstepping her boundaries.

And she had been; there was no longer any doubt of it. Amelia reviewed her list.

And then her mind switched back to Johnny that day in her office. Bruising her with memories of the husband she’d lost…

He’d reached for the door.

“Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

She hadn’t known why she’d called out to him. She’d just wished things had been different, that he’d kissed her while they’d had that moment alone. That she’d said, “I love you.”

“You’ll be home for dinner?” she’d asked.

“I always am,” he’d said, heading back to the outer office.

He was always home for dinner. It was she—CEO of the multibillion dollar company for which Johnny was a construction worker—who missed out on family dinners. But what else could she do?

She’d met Johnny on a job site. He was a master carpenter and project supervisor for Wainscoat Construction. She’d known there would be some challenges in their relationship, but they’d loved each other passionately and she’d been certain that would be enough. She’d had no way of knowing, when she’d married Johnny and had Charles so soon afterward, that her father would die suddenly. Hadn’t realized that while Johnny’s pride demanded he continue to work, he had no intention of stepping into her father’s shoes, of working a desk job. Ever.

“Hey.”

She’d jumped, hitting her elbow on the doorjamb. Johnny had come back.

“What?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’d be home for dinner.”

“Yeah,” she’d said softly, very glad he’d asked.

“Good.”

He’d kissed her then, deeply, intimately, exploring her mouth with his tongue in ways that left her feeling, as his touch always did, more like a giddy teenager than the boss of an internationally known company.

It had been the last time she’d ever felt his lips on hers.

Kathy’s voice interrupted Amelia’s memories. “This might have to wait until tonight, I really can’t talk long.” Kathy had come into the room so quietly Amelia hadn’t realized she was there. “Charles’s swimming lesson starts in half an hour and I like to let him warm up first.”

Kathy’s once-forthright gaze was elusive. And Amelia’s resolve, along with her stomachache, deepened.

Sometime over the past year, the pretty woman who’d been living with them since Charles’s birth had stopped wearing makeup—and her fashionably attractive clothes were hanging on her slight frame. Things Amelia had noticed, yet not really acknowledged. She’d been too overwhelmed with grief and trying to get on with life.

She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be making some changes around here.”

The nanny’s gaze shot up, her brows straight beneath cocoa-brown bangs, her face a mask. “What kind of changes?”

In that second Amelia was certain about a decision she hadn’t even thought she’d made.

“Since Johnny died I’ve been forced to consider what’s important to me,” she began.

“Your company is important to you.”

“My son is important to me.”

“Of course he is, which is why I’m here to look after him for you.”

“But what about you?” Amelia asked, forcing her trembling hands to remain by her sides. “Your personal life has slowly dwindled down to nothing. You’ve not only tried to take Johnny’s place in Charles’s life, but you’re trying to make up for his absence in mine, as well.”

Cloyingly so.

Amelia hated herself for that reaction. Almost buckled under the guilt. Was she doing the right thing?

Because if she was letting fear or insecurity take over, she had to stop. Now. She needed to make rational decisions based solely on what was best for her son; she couldn’t afford to lose emotional control. She had to be strong for Charles.

And she wasn’t going to let Johnny down, either.

For a moment, silence filled the space between the two women, and Amelia remembered the history they’d shared. The years. The celebrations. The grief.

Kathy’s stoicism slid away into the silence, leaving a lonely woman with slumped shoulders. “My heart is here,” she said softly, as though that explained everything. Tears welled in her eyes.

Amelia almost hugged her. This was the woman she’d entrusted with her son’s life. The only family she and Charles had left in the world.

How could she fire her? What was she thinking?

Could she even manage without Kathy? Could Charles?

There was Cara, of course, Amelia’s best friend since childhood. But as Amelia’s right hand at Wainscoat, Cara was needed at work.

And what about Kathy? Was it fair to let her go after she’d dedicated five years of her life to them?

“You’re only twenty-eight, Kath,” she said, taking a step closer to the woman. The two of them were standing in the middle of the elegant front room.

Facing off or moving together?

“Until this past year, you’ve always had a lot of boyfriends. You wanted to get married and have children of your own, but you haven’t been away from Charles or me in months. And talk of any life outside this house doesn’t even exist anymore.”

Kathy’s eyes darted around the room, her forearm jerking up and then back to her side as though signaling an end. “Charles is my child.” The words were sharp.

Where was the woman Amelia had wanted to hug just seconds before?

Suddenly, Johnny’s warning was all she could hear, all she could think about. Her husband had been observant, intuitive about people, and the most dedicated father she’d ever known. She remembered the immediate reason for this meeting, Kathy’s remark, in front of Charles, that Amelia did not have the right to make important decisions regarding her son’s life.

How had it come to this? At one time, it had been a blessing just to have Kathy around. Amelia and Johnny had often marveled at how lucky they’d been to find her. They’d been so thankful.

“You know he’s not really your child,” Amelia said softly, treading carefully in territory she neither recognized nor understood. “He’s my son, Kathy. Mine and Johnny’s.”

Kathy motioned awkwardly again, her entire body jerking slightly, as though she’d been hit and was trying to hide the impact.

“Johnny’s dead.”

Amelia couldn’t argue with that. They’d brought her the shirt he’d been wearing that last day. Pulled out of the ocean almost a mile from the initial explosion. It was little more than shreds.

“In body, not in spirit.”

Kathy’s fingers fidgeted almost imperceptibly at her sides, then stopped and her chin rose belligerently. “You hired me to love Charles.”

“To care for him, yes,” Amelia admitted. And of course she’d been gratified, and greatly relieved, to leave Charles in the hands of someone who not only kept him safe, but loved him. Kathy had been young and inventive; she’d entertained Charles, made his life fun. Made all their lives fun with her impromptu games and celebrations.

“That love gives me rights.” There was no mistaking the challenge in the nanny’s tone.

“Some.”

“Do you love Charles?”

“Of course! And because he’s my son, he’s my responsibility.”

“He’s my responsibility, too. And I love him every bit as much as you do.”

Amelia sighed. “Kathy, I’m his mother.”

They stood there on the plushest of carpets, and continued to confront each other, one in business clothes, the other in capri pants and a pastel, button-down blouse.

“But, I’ve raised him.”

Amelia’s throat closed as she faced Kathy’s hard-eyed stare. The younger woman still maintained an outward calm. But she was way out of line. In her thinking. In her attitude.

Just as Johnny had suspected.

“You’ve helped, yes,” Amelia murmured, not at all sure how to proceed. “Tremendously. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s my son and you should have sons of your own.”

Kathy started—not trembling, nothing so uncontrolled as that. “Charles is as much my son as he is yours, Amelia,” she said in an odd, faraway voice. “Being a mother is more than a biological function. We both know I’ve filled that role for Charles much more than you have.”

Oh, God. Who was this woman?

Fear rose within Amelia as she accepted that her deceased husband’s fears had been realized. On the verge of losing what little breakfast she’d eaten, she stood straight, strong, in control.

“Which is why I’ve decided it’s time to change some things,” Amelia said, calmed by her own voice, her ability to sound as though she could handle anything.

She didn’t know whether she was having any effect on Kathy, but she was convincing herself.

“What things?”

Was that panic she read in Kathy’s eyes?

Could the bravado be just that, then—a brave front Kathy erected as a way to deal with the pain and tragedy that had been crippling this household for the past year? Amelia could certainly understand that. Some days it felt as if bravado was the only glue holding her together.

So was Kathy’s behavior merely her attempt to achieve a sense of control over uncontrollable circumstances?

Amelia just didn’t know.

“You’re never going to find a husband or a life of your own as long as you’re tied to Charles.”

“I have plenty of time to find a husband, to start a family. Right now Charles needs me.”

“It’s not good for a little boy to have someone who’s dedicated her entire life to him,” Amelia said, certain of that much at least. “He’ll be spoiled, growing up to expect his relationships to be centered on him. He’ll expect to be waited on, to have whoever’s in his life there for him whenever he deems it necessary or desirable.”

“He’s just going on five, Amelia. He’s supposed to be able to count on having someone there for him.”

“There for him, yes, but he also needs to be aware that those around him have their own lives. He sees me go to work, sees me with Cara. Johnny worked, went out with his friends. Charles sees you go nowhere. He sees you loving no one but him. You’re always here, always available. Your existence has no purpose other than him.” Amelia broke off.

The nanny was silent for so long Amelia started to sweat. She was completely unsure of Kathy’s mental state these days and couldn’t begin to predict what the woman was thinking. Or how she might react.

“It’s not healthy for you, Charles or even me to have you so completely dedicated to us,” she added, hoping that Kathy wasn’t too hurt by her words.

When Kathy moved suddenly, Amelia barely stopped herself from throwing up her arms in defense. She was taller and stronger than the nanny, but…

Kathy dropped onto one of the sofas, resting her forearms on her knees, head bent.

“You may be right.” The words were soft but clear. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I’ve closed myself off.” She glanced up at Amelia. “There always seemed to be…so much need here, and I need to be needed.”

“You are needed, Kath,” Amelia said, coming to sit beside the younger woman, taking her hand. “It’s just that I think we’ve fallen into a co-dependency that’s dangerous for all of us.” She winced at using a term she considered psychobabble, but couldn’t come up with a better one.

“Dangerous?” Kathy pulled her hand away, clasping it with her other one in front of her. “I don’t like the way that sounds,” she said, staring at her clasped hands.

Standing, Amelia crossed the room to look out at the expanse of green lawn she’d once taken such pride in. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been forced to face a lot of truths this past year. About my life. My marriage. Myself. And I’m finding that while there are some things I can’t control, there are other things I can—and I’ve let them slip out of my control.”

Kathy was silent. Neither friend nor employee. Or family member. Glancing at the bent head, Amelia wasn’t sure who Kathy was, what she needed.

So Amelia continued with what she did know.

“I’ve done a lot of searching since Johnny died, trying to find my identity, a new course for the rest of my life. Trying to find out what really matters.”

“Wainscoat Construction matters,” Kathy said, looking up. “It always has.”

“But my son matters more,” Amelia replied. Yes, the company meant the world to her, but Charles was life itself. And what good was a world without life?

“From now on, I’m a mother. First and foremost. I’m going to be delegating many of my day-to-day responsibilities at the office,” she said now, imagining Cara’s reaction when she heard Amelia’s decision. Would her best friend think she’d lost her mind?

Somehow Amelia doubted it.

This was right.

“I’m going to spend the next fifteen years here at home, raising my son. Caring for him, practicing the piano with him. Encouraging him. Teaching him.”

Kathy paled. “And where does that leave me?”

Amelia almost caved then. Almost.

“Finding the life that’s out there waiting for you…”

“You’re letting me…go?”

Amelia nodded.

The nanny looked as though she might faint.

Once the decision had been made—and delivered—Amelia wanted to get Kathy out of her home immediately. Safely away from Charles.

There was no justification for the urgency.

Still, the urgency drove her.

While Kathy was packing her essentials, Amelia called Cara at the office and then her secretary to have all her morning appointments rescheduled. She also arranged for Celeste and Clifford Smith—the couple who’d been looking after the Wainscoats for thirty years—to have the remainder of Kathy’s things packed up and sent to her. And she canceled Charles’s morning swim lesson.

Then she escorted Kathy into Charles’s playroom, where the little boy was painstakingly drawing a picture with a big purple crayon clutched in his left hand. Left-handed like his father. The picture was for “Daddy’s grave to leave when they had the annivers’y day” the following week.

As they filed slowly into the room, Charles looked up from his child-size wooden table, pushing his glasses up his nose with the side of the hand still holding the crayon.

He didn’t say a word, but Amelia’s heart lurched at the expression on her son’s face as he saw the two of them together. He knew something was up.

What was she doing?

Charles had already lost so much. Far too much.

She couldn’t meet Kathy’s eyes as the woman hesitated at the door.

“Charles…” Both women spoke at once.

Kathy approached the little table, kneeling down until she was nose to nose with Amelia’s son.

“Charles,” she said, a forced smile stretching her unnaturally taut lips, “I just came in to say goodbye.”

His feet stopped swinging beneath the table. “Where ya’ goin’?”

“To my mother’s,” Kathy said. “I spoke to her a little while ago and she asked me to come for a visit.”

Charles wrinkled his nose. “I thought you said she’s not good at games.”

Kathy shrugged. “So I’ll teach her.” She ran a finger lightly down his nose. “Before I go, though, I want you to promise me you’ll be a good boy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know it’s what your daddy would want.”

Amelia didn’t miss the nanny’s lack of reference to her.

Charles nodded, picked up his picture of four square-bodied people standing in the air above what could have been a grove of purple trees or a crowd of very sunburned people at a baseball game. “You think he’ll like my picture?” he asked Kathy, the need for his nanny’s approval evident.

“Oh, yeah, buddy, he’s gonna love it,” she said, real warmth in her voice.

Charles sat up a little straighter, grinning at Kathy. His denim-clad legs were swinging again. “I know he will.”

Throat tight, Amelia was tempted just to call it off. Kathy’s love for Charles was so obvious—as obvious as Charles’s was for her. How could Amelia rob them of something so precious? What kind of mother did that make her?

Just as she was about to change her mind, a mental flashback to the scene in her living room half an hour ago held Amelia rigid. There’d never been any doubt that Kathy loved Charles. The doubt lay in whether or not that love was healthy.

Charles grew still again, his brows drawn together beneath those black frames that made him look too serious sometimes. His dark hair skimmed the collar of his polo shirt when he tilted his head back slightly to peer at Kathy. “Will you be done visiting to come home for the annivers’y party? That’s what Daddy would want, right?”

“My mom’s pretty lonely, Charles,” Kathy said. “I’m going to be living with her for now and then probably getting a little house of my own.”

“You don’t like our house?”

“Of course I do!” Kathy said, moving a little closer to the boy. “I love your house! But I’ve been here a long time and everybody needs a house of their own when they’re grown up.”

“Is that why Daddy went to live in heaven? To have a house of his own?”

“I don’t think so, Charles,” Kathy said. “This is your daddy’s house. He didn’t choose to go away from you. It was an accident.”

Feeling completely ineffective, Amelia simply stood there. Kathy was handling things so well—and deserved the chance to handle them.

Kathy knew exactly what to say to Charles. How to say it. And she was, even now, putting all her effort into making her departure something Charles could accept.

She had been a remarkable nurturer from the very beginning. It was one of the qualities that had made her such a great addition to their home.

Still frowning, so serious for his five years, Charles asked, “But you’re choosing to go away from me?”

“Oh, sweetie, no!” Kathy shot Amelia a half gloating, half lethal glance. “I don’t really have a choice, either, just in a different way.” Amelia was poised and ready to discontinue the conversation before anything damaging was said. Only the loving tone of Kathy’s voice as she spoke to Charles gave her pause.

“I’m a daughter,” the nanny said softly, “just like you’re a son. And as a daughter, I don’t have any choice but to mind my mother, who told me this morning that I should come home.”

“Like we do what Daddy would want?”

“Just like that.” And then, with another glance over her shoulder, “and what Mommy wants, too.”

Charles was silent, his legs swinging slowly, as he seemed to ponder his nanny’s words. At last he spoke.

“But if you go make your mom not lonely, doesn’t that make me be lonely?”

Tears sprang to Amelia’s eyes.

“Oh, buddy, come here,” Kathy said, pulling Charles onto her lap. She hugged him tightly, rocking back and forth slowly. “No matter where I go, I’ll always be loving you,” she said. Charles’s chubby little face was visible over the nanny’s shoulder. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“You only have to think of me and you’ll be able to feel me loving you, okay?”

“’Kay.”

Amelia started to panic. Wondering what had ever made her think she could cope without Kathy’s help.

Kathy set Charles back enough to gaze into his eyes. “Promise me you’ll remember that? That you’ll think of me?”

The little boy hesitated and then slowly nodded. “I promise.”

Amelia might as well not have been in the room.

She cleared her throat.

Kathy slowly set Charles back in his chair, straightening. “And besides,” she added, “I won’t be far away. My mom lives right here in Chicago. I can still visit you.”

Amelia had already established that much. She had no intention of robbing them of the right to care about each other, to see each other.

The visits would be supervised, of course, but Charles didn’t have to know that.

Charles was staring down at the table. “Will you come back to see my pictures when you’re visiting your mom’s? And take me to swimming lessons?”

Kathy’s shoulders stiffened. “I don’t think your mom—”

“It’s Kathy’s turn to be busy with other things in her life right now, Charles, just like Mommy’s been busy at work,” Amelia interjected quickly. “And now I’m through with that.” She crossed the room, kneeling to put an arm around Charles’s shoulders. “I’m going to be here from now on to take you to all your lessons and play ball with you and everything else. But I’ve invited Kathy to have dinner with us as soon as she can.”

She let go of a very tightly held breath when Charles’s face cleared. “Just don’t come on the meat night when it’s hard to chew and gets stuck in your teeth,” he said to Kathy before returning his attention to the box people he was coloring red.

“He doesn’t like roast tenderloin,” Kathy told Amelia.

Amelia nodded. She knew that.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you soon, buddy,” Kathy said, heading toward the door.

The little boy looked up briefly and then resumed coloring. “’Kay. Bye.”

Kathy turned for one last glance at that bent head before she left.

Her eyes clouded with pain.

Trying perhaps a little too hard, Amelia filled the days immediately following Kathy’s departure with far more activity than Charles was used to.

She broke the rules she and Johnny had established together during those long hours late at night when they’d lain awake in bed, her head on his chest, his hand on her belly, and planned how it would be once their baby was born. She knowingly spoiled Charles. Despite her certainty about the rightness of what she’d done, she overcompensated in her attempt to divert his affection away from the young woman with whom he’d spent most of his waking hours.

She told herself that wasn’t why she and Cara were standing in line with Charles at Six Flags amusement park that August afternoon. The park was one of Charles’s favorite places; they had season passes and more hours to fill than Amelia and Charles had ever had before. The park had been one of Kathy’s favorite places, too.

The park was crowded, surprising, since it was only Thursday. As soon as they entered, Charles’s brows came together in a considering look that was familiar to his mother and her redheaded manager of operations and best friend, Cara Carson. “I think we should do the Looney Tooter first,” he said, the barely contained excitement in his voice making it an octave higher than normal. “’Cause it goes everywhere around and then after that, we can remember what we should do next.”

“Looney Tooter it is,” Amelia said, grinning at her friend as Charles pulled at them, eager to get on with his afternoon. He was making it a little difficult for her and Cara, one on either side of him, to keep a firm grip on his hands.

In deference to the ninety-degree weather, or maybe more to fit in with the crowd, all three of them were wearing shorts, thin cotton shirts and tennis shoes. Amelia also had on a floppy straw hat and sunglasses that she hoped would disguise her. Her face would be recognizable to anyone who read the business section of any Chicago paper.

“We’re going to be there pretty soon,” Charles informed her with an extra tug. Amelia felt a pang as she noticed how Charles was starting to show promise of having his father’s tall, muscled body. She wondered if Johnny was watching over them. If he approved of her decision to dismiss Kathy. If he thought she’d waited too long to do so. If he disapproved of her bringing Charles to the amusement park for no special reason on a weekday afternoon.

And then it was time to ride. The Looney Tooter. Waddaview Charter Service, Porky and Petunia’s Lady Bugz and Buzzy Beez…

“It’s been two weeks since Kathy left, and he doesn’t seem to have suffered any great damage,” Cara said as the two leaned on the wrought-iron fence surrounding one of the kiddie rides Charles had insisted on riding alone. He’d had his fifth birthday, he’d reminded them, and was now officially “a big boy.”

“He misses her,” Amelia murmured, eyes on Charles’s bright-green shirt going around and around. “But right now, the novelty of having Mommy home more often—and of having his own little office at Wainscoat—has been a good distraction.”

Cara was frowning, although when Charles passed them and waved, she bestowed a huge, engaging grin on him.

“Isn’t it possible that having you around now has made her expendable to him?”

“I guess.”

“How are you doing without her?” The words were spoken softly, both women looking straight ahead.

Amelia didn’t even think about prevaricating. Not with Cara. There was no point. “The evenings are hard once Charles goes to bed.” Shifting her weight from her right foot to her left, Amelia rested her elbows on the fence. “You know, after my dad died, things weren’t great between Johnny and me, but I never realized how much I still relied on his companionship at night.”

“You were out a lot.”

“Yeah.” At the business functions Cara had been attending for her since Johnny’s death. While she wouldn’t trade her time with Charles for anything, Amelia yearned for the days when everything was clear—or she was too busy to notice that it wasn’t. “I shouldn’t ask this, Cara,” she said now, “but you’ve been talking about getting out of your neighborhood, selling the condo. And with Kathy’s apartment vacant…”

“You’re asking me to move out to the estate?”

“You don’t have to. It’s just an idea.”

“A great one,” Cara said, elbowing Amelia in the ribs. “I’ve always loved your house, you know that. But I’d insist on paying rent.”

“No way.” Amelia shook her head. “Consider it a well-deserved raise.” Each time Charles passed them, he waved. God, she loved that kid.

“We always talked about living together when we were young, remember?” Cara was smiling.

Cara had been raised by her aunt—her father’s older sister—after losing both of her parents in a car accident when she was five. Amy’s mother had been killed by a drunk driver before Amy’s first birthday. It was something that had drawn her and Cara together from the very beginning, losing a parent that way, and kept them together during all the years of their growing up.

And while Amelia had adored her father and Cara her aunt, they’d both thought that somehow the void in their hearts would be filled if they could live together. A childish dream but one that still meant something.

Amelia couldn’t help smiling at her friend’s reaction. “Kathy’s apartment has its own entrance and kitchen,” she said. “You’d have as much privacy as you wanted.”

“It would sure be convenient for me to be out there on the days you don’t come into the office,” Cara said. “I could just bring stuff home and we could work at night after Charles is asleep.”

For the first time in weeks, Amelia felt a lessening of the dreadful loneliness that had been gripping her.

“You’ll tell me if you’re not happy with that arrangement?” she asked, shifting to meet her friend’s eyes.

“I will.” Cara’s gaze was as forthright as always.

“Okay.”

Amelia turned as Charles came barreling over to the Buzzy Beez exit. She grabbed the back pocket of his shorts before he could get swept up in the crowd.

“Oh, Mom, that was so cool! Did you see me go faster and faster, maybe sixty-four miles an hour, and no hands or anything?” The little boy pushed his glasses back up his nose.

“We sure did, Charles! You’re going to be as big and brave as your dad was pretty soon.” Amelia grinned.

“Yeah,” Charles said solemnly. “Next week, pro’bly.”

After an ice-cream bar, a ride on the Ferris wheel and an encounter with Elmer Fudd that included, on Charles’s insistence, a hug for each of them, the trio started on their second go-round of Charles’s favorite rides.

“I’m going to make a dash for the ladies’ room,” Cara said when Amelia rejoined her on the sidelines after buckling Charles into Lady Bugz.

Nodding, Amelia continued to watch her son and he want around and around. His grin pulled at her, reminding her of his dad. It had been a year, and the pain of his loss hadn’t diminished at all. Johnny had been a great father. The best.

And as a husband—

Amelia couldn’t see Charles.

The ride came to a stop with the little boy on the opposite side of the enclosure, the machinery between them. She moved quickly, vaulting over the rail. She braced herself, expecting him to barrel into her as she dashed around the ride.

Charles wasn’t there.

In the couple of seconds it had taken Amelia to get to the other side, he’d disappeared.

Impossible.

Looking around frantically, trying to calm her frenzied heart, telling herself Charles had to be there, that panic was ridiculous, Amelia panicked.

“Charles?” she called, her heart pumping so fast she could hardly breathe.

He had to be there.

“Charles?” she called again, more loudly, weaving through the masses of kids exiting the ride, searching for a glimpse of that bright-green shirt. He’d just gone around the other way. She was sure of it.

He knew the rules. She’d tested him just a minute or two before he’d boarded Lady Bugz.

“Don’t ever be alone,” he’d recited. “Always hold hands when we’re walking. Don’t talk to anyone but the exact ones I came with today and if I have to throw up, tell you…”

Charles Wainscoat Dunn was worth a lot of money.

The rules were what kept him safe.

“Charles!” she shrieked, consumed by terror as she reached her original vantage point and her son was nowhere to be seen.

“God, no.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she angrily blinked them away. She had to find him. This wasn’t happening.

“Charles!” She hollered again and again, running around the entire ride, which was now being invaded by a new mass of children who’d been waiting for their turn.

A couple of little girls looked scared as she ran past. People were starting to stare.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A ride attendant appeared. “You really can’t be in here.”

“My son,” Amelia panted, half-hysterical with fright. “He was just on this ride and now he’s gone.”

“The exit’s that way,” the young man said, pointing in the direction Amelia had just come from.

“I know that!” she snapped. “He’s not there!”

“Have you looked outside the fence? He probably just wandered out with the rest of the kids.”

“Charles wouldn’t do that. He knows the rules.” Amelia continued to scour the area, certain her son had to be there someplace.

Oh. God.

She choked back blinding tears. Johnny. I need you.

The skinny young man looked around at the restless kids now buckled in and waiting impatiently for the Lady Bugz to start moving.

“Sometimes kids get excited and take off for the next ride,” he said, his tone reassuring. “Don’t worry, he’ll turn up. If he’s not right here or in the vicinity, then head over to Lost Parents in Hometown Park. It’s across from The Orbit. That’s where whoever finds him will take him.”

“You don’t understand…” Amelia started to explain, and then stopped.

If Charles wasn’t here, he was someplace else. And she was wasting precious time.

Stumbling in her haste, Amelia tore around the outside of the ride, hardly seeing anything, searching only for that bright-green shirt.

Her worst nightmare was coming true and she was helpless. Helpless!

“Charles!” she screamed, desperate, her entire body shaking.

“Amelia!” Cara’s familiar voice, her touch on Amelia’s shoulder, slowed her panic, but only for a moment. “What’s wrong?” Cara was asking urgently. “Where’s Charles?”

“I don’t know!” Amelia cried, the last of her composure disappearing. “When the ride stopped, he was gone!”

“He’s got to be here, honey,” Cara said, her calm voice belying the worried look in her eyes as she twisted her head. “He knows the rules. He’d never let someone haul him off without a helluva lot of hollering, and you were standing right here. You would’ve heard him.”

Cara was right, of course. Amelia straightened. Shoulders back, she looked over the heads of the people passing in front of her. “Where is he?” she demanded, autocratic, commanding, in an odd parody of leadership. “Where is he, dammit?” The bravado ended abruptly with a gulping sob.

Cara’s arm slid around Amelia just as she might have fallen to her knees. “Come on, sweetie, we’ll take one more walk around the immediate vicinity and then go to Lost Parents. Charles knows where it is, and even if he doesn’t, anyone who finds him will take him there.”

Amelia nodded, allowing herself to be led as they walked around the ride one more time, checked behind trees, under benches and behind a vendor’s cart.

“He’s gone,” she whispered, desperation making her light-headed even while something inside her was pushing her to be strong.

“Let’s go to Lost Parents,” Cara said, right beside her. “He’ll get scared if he has to wait there too long.”

Adrenaline propelled Amelia through the park faster than she’d ever traveled it before, guiding her as she ducked around and through people. Her straw hat was knocked off and she hardly noticed, leaving it to be trampled. She could feel Cara right behind her, but wouldn’t have slowed if the other woman got held up.

Charles needed her.

And she needed him. More than anyone knew.

She and Cara burst through the entrance to Lost Parents together. And somehow were standing there hand in hand when an attendant told Amelia that Charles wasn’t there.

“He has to be here!” She heard herself screaming as if she was somewhere outside, watching the whole horrible incident from a safe place.

“What’s our next move?”

She heard Cara ask the question, grateful on some level for her friend’s strength, her ability to think when Amelia couldn’t.

“We’ll search the park, put everyone on immediate alert. I’m sure he’ll turn up. They always do…”

Sometime over the next grueling hours, while park security, the police and eventually—as dusk and then darkness fell—the FBI conducted searches, Amelia slipped into shock.

Cara was holding her when the park finally closed, was cleared out, thoroughly searched a final time—and the official word came in.

Charles was not in the park. He might have wandered away. Might be in the vicinity. But no one seemed to think that. They were going under the assumption that the Wainscoat heir had been abducted.

Cara was holding Amelia when the wrenching sobs wracked her friend’s body.

And was still holding her when, so lost in her fear and grief Amelia didn’t even know where she was, they were escorted out of the park.

1

Five months later…

Another town.

There’d been so many.

But this town, on this cold January day, was the one. It had to be.

She didn’t even glance at the dirty snowbanks, the barren trees.

Her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, Amy Wayne, as she called herself on the road, couldn’t take the time to care which fast-food places were being advertised on the billboards she whizzed past, or what the economic atmosphere in this particular Michigan town seemed to be. Depressed. Run-down. Thriving. Prosperous. Gray and broken. Beautiful. She’d seen them all.

She’d come to Lawrence, Michigan, to find her son. Nothing else mattered.

Without taking her gaze from the road, Amy reached for the thermostat, flipping it on defrost to clear gathering condensation from the windows.

A few minutes ago she’d lost sight of the car she’d been tracking all day, but she was intimately acquainted with the fact that county roads went in only two directions. To the next town. Or back.

Her ex-nanny’s vehicle was a spruce green, four-door Pontiac Grand Am—purchased after she’d been exonerated, at least by the law, of any suspicion in Charles’s disappearance. The car hadn’t passed in the other direction, so it had to be up ahead.

And almost out of gas.

As far as Amy could tell, that sedan hadn’t stopped for several hours. Which meant its driver would probably be forced to stop in Lawrence.

And Amy was going to be right there when it did.

After almost five months on the road alone, chasing down every hint of hope while the officials investigated everyone Amelia Wainscoat had ever known, Amy would see her son again. To fill her aching arms with his sweet, robust little body.

She’d made only occasional visits home, primarily to deal with business matters. The few people who knew what she was doing, who knew she’d undertaken this search a few weeks after her son’s disappearance, wondered about her sanity. But no one had been able to stop her.

Amy could hardly remember what it felt like to be the confident, in-control woman who’d accompanied her son to the amusement park that afternoon so many months before. Some days she could hardly remember what it was like to feel at all.

How much did five-year-olds grow in five months? she wondered, her eyes alert, darting here, there, everywhere at once, ensuring that nothing—no one—got by her. Had he lost that baby fat she and Johnny had loved so much?

The multimillionaire mother might not look so powerful in her department-store clothes and polyester-filled parka, with her barely made-up face, as she drove the ordinary black Thunderbird she’d purchased to replace the chauffeur-driven limo she’d left at home. But her slender appearance, still sporting remnants of the sleekness she’d once worn so naturally, was as deceptive as the car she was driving. Over the past months of searching for her abducted son, she and her car had proved just how high performance they were.

They were going to win this one. Johnny had always said she could do anything she put her mind to. He’d told her many times, usually while shaking that gorgeous blond head of his, that he’d never met anyone who could make things happen the way she could.

Of course, that had been B.A. Before the accident. Before she’d known she could take nothing in life for granted. That all the money in the world did nothing for her at all. Bought nothing that mattered.

Her stomach in knots, Amy pressed a little harder on the accelerator, the eight-cylinder coupe sliding only slightly when she rounded the next bend. Where was that green car?

She’d lost it twice that day and each time had found it again within minutes. The Fates were with her now.

And maybe Johnny was, too. In the past months, Amy had felt an odd closeness to the husband she’d lost. Odd because, in some ways, she felt closer to Johnny after his death than she had during the last few years of their marriage. As though he was watching over her.

In those last years, the one thing that had bound them together was Charles. No wonder she felt his presence, his support, as she dedicated every ounce of energy to finding their son and returning him safely home.

And Johnny had warned her about Kathy. He’d understand why she’d undertaken this search, which others considered a complete dead end.

He’d also understand that she couldn’t just sit at home, waiting for the professionals to do their jobs. He’d share her uncompromising need to be out here on the road.

What would her little boy be wearing? He’d always preferred denim. And baseball jerseys. But of course Kathy knew that…if Kathy was the abductor, as Amy firmly believed.

Did Charles have a winter coat?

She should call Brad Dorchester. Let him know she was so close. She was paying the private investigator an exorbitant amount of money for a reason. She’d hired him—a Denver resident—over the perfectly competent detectives in Chicago because he was reputed to be the best in the country.

And she’d promised to keep him informed of her whereabouts.

While the renowned P.I. did not approve of Amy’s active participation in the hunt for her son—especially as she was working independently of the official search, driven by her own instincts—he was seriously engaged in keeping track of her and her progress.

And he followed up on every hint, every lead, she might find.

Eyeing her cell phone in the console, she continued to drive.

Dorchester, an ex-FBI agent, and the FBI, along with various local police forces, had been working around the clock for months. In the beginning, they’d received about a call a minute from people reporting sightings. None of them had turned out to be accurate, but they’d had to check them all.

The past five months, they’d investigated Wainscoat business associates, both in the company and outside it, gardeners, repairmen, even her mailman. They’d talked to every single employee of the amusement park, but no one remembered seeing anything unusual. Some had remembered Charles, but no one had noticed him with anyone in particular.

The Chicago police had even had her and Cara, Celeste and Clifford Smith, the chauffeur and a few other key people take lie-detector tests. To no avail.

Kathy had been among those tested; she’d been questioned repeatedly. The police had concluded she wasn’t guilty—and then she’d vanished without a trace. Until recently, when there’d been sightings in or near various Michigan towns.

Charles’s picture had been everywhere. On television, posted around the country at police stations, schools, churches. Even in the tabloids.

She’d given them the picture of Charles that had been taken at his fifth birthday party, less than two weeks before his disappearance. The pitcher for the Chicago White Sox had been there. In the photo he’d been ruffling Charles’s hair.

And what about that hair, dark and thick like hers? She and Johnny had kept their son’s hair just long enough to be untraditional. Had his abductor cut it short?

Another bend in the road.

Still no green sedan.

The town was just ahead. Instead of billboards, she could see buildings. The green sedan might be just around that curve. Amy pressed the gas a little harder.

Where would she and her son stay that evening? Grand Rapids, maybe? Or Kalamazoo? Someplace far from the dusty little towns she assumed Charles had been dragged through all through the fall and into the winter. Someplace where she could get them a penthouse suite and they could order room service and play video games until her little boy fell asleep at the controls and she could pull him onto her lap and never let him go.

Another curve. No car.

Hands trembling, Amy wondered what she’d do if she didn’t find him that night.

How could she possibly take this for another day? Or week. Or month.

An insidious burning crawled through the lining of her stomach, settling just beneath her rib cage. Hands clenched around the steering wheel, shoulders hunched in her parka, she admonished herself to stay focused. On the road. On what mattered. She wasn’t going to allow doubts. Wasn’t going to get discouraged. Charles needed her.

And she needed him, too.

This was the day. The town. She could feel it. She’d never been this close. Never had a lead that lasted longer than the minutes it took to check it out.

Wiping the sweat from her upper lip, she slowed as she approached the town. One motel, a diner, some shops, scattered homes—nothing as formal as a neighborhood—a school that looked a little shabby… Occasional piles of dirty, melting snow.

And a green Grand Am. It turned the corner in front of her.

Thank God.

Giddy with renewed confidence, Amy ignored the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit, ignored the grumbling in her stomach, pressed her foot to the floor—and caught the glimpse of taillights as the green car turned again. And then again. It was winding over roads that looked as if they’d been forgotten in the previous century. Cracked, graying pavement. Potholes. No sign of human life on either side.

Kathy Stead—the brunette driving that car had to be Kathy—was traveling away from the county road that led out of town. And turning without hesitation, as though she knew where she was going. But Amy couldn’t remember the nanny ever mentioning the town of Lawrence.

There were no taillights at the next turn. Head snapping from left to right, Amy peered intently. The car had to be up there; she just wasn’t seeing it. Had it turned into a drive? Or a street that she’d missed?

Fighting the nausea that would only slow her down, she drove the stretch of road twice more, slowing at every slight break in the overgrown brush. Cars didn’t simply disappear into thin air.

Five-year-old boys, yes, that happened, but not three-thousand-pound cars.

Still, there was no sign of it.

A huge, wrenching sob filled the Thunderbird. She’d never heard herself make such a sound until the night Johnny died. It didn’t surprise her anymore. Mostly she just gave in to it. Let it twist her ribs painfully, ripping her throat as it exploded out of her. Sometimes she hurt so badly she couldn’t help herself.

All day she’d been chasing this car. Daring, after so many months of emotional torment, to hold on to some minuscule thread of hope. And now the car had been out of her sight for longer than it’d been since she’d first spotted it coming out of the motel drive early that afternoon.

Yesterday she’d been in Flint, showing around a picture of her ex-nanny. The cashier in a gas-station food mart had recognized Kathy, said she’d been in the evening before. She thought Kathy had said she was staying at the motel down the street.

Damning the dusk that was falling in spite of every effort she’d made to outrun it, Amy choked back more tears.

Please. Please don’t let me lose him again, she silently begged.

Back at the intersection where she’d last seen the sedan, Amy turned abruptly and sent gravel flying.

She pictured Charles as he’d been that day at Six Flags, prancing along beside her. His sweet eyes had shone with joy behind those dark frames.

She wasn’t going to fail. She couldn’t.

She retraced her path again. And again.

Nothing.

And then she took every side road, private drive and turnoff that bisected the forsaken stretch of old blacktop.

An hour later found her once more at the main road, staring out into the blackness that was a perfect cover for secrets. Was Charles out there in the darkness? Crying for her?

Was the world making any sense at all to the small son she and Johnny had tried so hard to protect?

“No!” Amy cried aloud, slamming the palm of her hand on her steering wheel. “No! No! No…”

Cotton pants sweaty and wrinkled, her face stiff with tears and a day’s worth of highway grime, Amelia Wainscoat, CEO and principal stockholder of a nationally famous billion-dollar construction firm, wearily slid the big metal key into the lock on the motel room’s discolored door.

She didn’t have to stay in Lawrence. Could have gone on to Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo, supplied herself with the comforts and amenities of a five-star hotel, but she hadn’t been able to make herself leave this nondescript town—not while there was still a chance that her son was here.

She’d barely dropped her leather bag on the bed before she was stripping down on her way to a bathroom that would only be passable at best, to stand in a skinny and cracked tub the likes of which, until nine months ago, she’d only seen in movies.

There were no bugs. That was good enough for her.

Careful not to let the suspiciously stained plastic curtain touch her more than she could help, Amy stepped into the tub. The towel provided for her use—a threadbare piece of terry cloth barely big enough to cover her shoulders—was hanging in close proximity. And the complimentary shampoo was a brand she’d at least heard of.

It was her lucky day.

Or so she tried to convince herself until she turned on the shower—and discovered that calling it a shower was far too generous. And no matter how far to the left she twisted the faucet handle, the temperature was tepid at best.

Amy burst into tears. She cried until her head ached. Her hair, cut straight and just to her shoulders, hung wet and limp around her face.

Maybe she was going crazy. What on earth was she, Amelia Wainscoat, only child of the once-prominent, now-deceased William George Wainscoat, doing in a tiny depressed town, standing in a shower with who knew what growing in the drain at her feet? And all because she’d seen a car that had looked like Kathy Stead’s. And a woman driving it who—judging by the glimpses she’d had—could have been her former nanny.

“But what else can I do?” She asked the question aloud, no longer uncomfortable with hearing her own voice. She wasn’t sure when, during the past months, the habit of talking to herself had started.

“You’re losing it, Wainscoat, if you really believed you were going to be holding your baby tonight.” There’d been no sign of a child in that green sedan.

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

Of course, Charles had always slept in the car. He could have been lying down, either in the seat beside Kathy or on the back seat—depending on how much he’d grown, how much space he’d need for legs that weren’t going to be as short and stout as she remembered them.

She hoped he’d been strapped in.

If Kathy wanted Charles badly enough to have kidnapped him, surely she’d be seeing to his safety.

Johnny had warned her about Kathy that day in her office, but even he had been certain that Charles was not in any physical danger. Of course, that had been before last year, before Kathy had become almost insanely possessive.

Amy had to struggle not to lean against the mildewed tile wall beside her. To lean, and slide right down with the minimal stream of water to the dirty tub and then slowly down the drain.

2

“Brad Dorchester.”

It was almost ten o’clock at night. Didn’t the man ever go off duty and just say hello? “It’s Amy.”

“I’ve been expecting your call.”

“Why?” They’d had no specific arrangement.

“Because it’s been three days.”

Dressed in the white flannel pajamas she’d bought the previous week, Amy methodically arranged the pillows against the nailed-down headboard and dropped to the mattress, clutching her cell phone.

“Do you have any news?” she asked.

“Nothing significant. I’d have called if I did.”

She nodded. Brad was very good at keeping her informed.

Forcing the desperate, grieving woman deep inside, Amy escaped into the nonchalant manner she’d developed somewhere between Kenosha and La Crosse, Wisconsin, the previous fall.

“I think I found Kathy today.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. She shouldn’t have bothered calling. She knew that Brad agreed with the police. They’d run a thorough investigation on Kathy, on her bank account, her habits, her home. Questioned her intensively. Administered two lie-detector tests. Watched her carefully. After which they’d absolved her of any suspicion of wrongdoing. That was the reason Amy was out on the road; she still suspected that Kathy had taken Charles. She believed the nanny was guilty because nothing else made sense. There’d been no ransom demands, no communiqués, no threats.

And if she didn’t look for Kathy, no one would, considering the official verdict that the nanny wasn’t involved.

She wouldn’t have called except that she wanted Brad armed with every possible piece of information, no matter how small, insignificant, inconsequential or unnecessary it might be. Regardless of what Brad believed about Kathy, Amy had all her hopes wrapped up in him.

If anyone could put seemingly random pieces together, it was Brad Dorchester. He wouldn’t be working for her otherwise.

“You’re out on the road again.” His no-nonsense tone was resigned, disapproving.

“Of course.”

“When did you leave Chicago?”

“Two days ago.”

“You were only home twenty-four hours this time.”

“I can’t just sit there and wait. You have no idea the toll it takes on me.”

“Traveling incognito from town to town is taking its toll, Amelia.”

“He’s got to be going to school somewhere, or having his teeth cleaned, visiting a doctor, playing a video game or eating a fast-food hamburger. Someplace, someone’s going to have seen him.”

“Every law officer in that part of the country is looking for those leads.”

“The abductors know that. They’ll be on guard. But they won’t be guarding against an unremarkable woman who’s just moving to town. There’s nothing threatening about that. And townspeople talk. All I have to do is be in the right place at the right time, get to know the right person, and I’m going to find my son.”

“Or make yourself ill.”

She wasn’t paying him to look out for her health. “I know it was Kathy I was following today.”

“Kathy was cleared of any suspicion months ago.”

“And afterward she buys a new car and leaves town.”

“Wouldn’t you have needed a new life after all that publicity? Being questioned in connection with kidnapping a child is a little hard on the reputation. Especially in her line of work.”

“She was unbalanced and had a motive.”

Charles had disappeared less then two weeks after Amy had let Kathy go. Kathy had tried to visit the boy twice during that time—without Amy’s approval—but Celeste and Clifford had denied her entrance to the Chicago Heights mansion.

“I followed her myself for those first weeks after the abduction,” Brad said. “She never left Chicago. She neither had Charles, nor made contact with anyone else who showed any evidence of having a newly acquired child. Her alibi was solid, Amelia.”

They’d had this conversation before. Countless times.

Kathy’s claim that she’d been at the mall shopping had been confirmed by two different sales clerks who remembered seeing her. Still, Amy wasn’t convinced. The clerks might have been mistaken. Or friends of Kathy’s. Or…

Amy rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to remember if she’d eaten anything that day.

“Your resources work very well in the big city. But if we’re going to turn over every stone, we need infiltration in the small towns, too.”

“Small towns have police departments, Amelia.”

“But they aren’t all that practiced at handling big cases. They give speeding tickets, sponsor the local baseball team and drink bad coffee.”

“You’ve been watching too much television.”

“Some of these towns don’t even have their own police departments.”

He didn’t answer. She’d scored.

“Why do you think Kathy would be moving from small town to small town, instead of trying to get lost in a big city?” he asked easily, as though doing nothing more than making conversation.

Brad Dorchester never just made conversation.

“I don’t, necessarily.” She studied the faux quilted stitching in the patterned bedspread. “You and your men are more effective in the big city. I’m more effective in small towns. And it seems to me that if I were on the run from negative publicity in a big city, I’d try to find a hole in a small town. One that’s mostly oblivious to the rest of the world so I could cuddle up, wait it out. And if I had a little boy to hide, I’d find some obscure place where his picture hadn’t been plastered all over every public building within miles.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“You already know that.”

“I also know that Kathy Stead does not have your son.”

The room’s earth tones—medium brown and a dark rusty orange—were suddenly cloying. They were everywhere she looked. The carpet, the bedding, the chair and walls. And when she closed her eyes—more earth tones. She couldn’t escape.

Her stomach churned with nausea.

“Then tell me why, if a perfect stranger took him, there’s been no ransom note,” she said when she could.

“Children are taken for any number of reasons,” Brad told her patiently. “Some crazy woman who can’t have a kid sees one standing alone and figures she can do a better job of keeping him safe than whoever left him standing there.”

“But if some sicko just wanted a child, why take one with such a high profile, one whose mother can afford to go to the ends of the earth looking for him?”

“It’s possible the abductors had no idea who they were taking that day. You and Johnny were pretty careful about keeping the press away from your son.”

Amy traced the pattern in the cheap bedspread with one finger. “Tell me something, Brad.”

A pause, then, “What?”

One part of her, perhaps the tiny part that was still completely rational, didn’t blame him for that hesitation.

“With all the publicity that’s been out about Charles’s disappearance, the abductors surely know his identity by now.”

“One would assume so.”

“So how’s that knowledge going to affect them if they really hadn’t known who he was before they took him?”

It wasn’t a question she’d needed to ask before. Kathy had Charles; she was certain of it.

But there’d been no sign of a child in that car today….

“Scare the shit out of them, I’d imagine.”

“Beyond that.”

“Make them nervous.”

“And more apt to do something drastic?”

“Kidnapping a child’s pretty damn drastic.”

Sweat gathered between her palm and the little black cell phone.

“But if they thought they were taking just any kid, a kid whose parents couldn’t afford to hire private help, who had to rely solely on the limited resources of public law enforcement, their risk of getting caught was much smaller. Now that they know who they’ve got, they must realize that their chances of getting caught have become greater—and that the repercussions will be greater, too, because I have clout and the case has been so publicized. Suddenly the game is much more dangerous.”

“Yes.”

His bedside manner left a lot to be desired. Yet, while he might resent her insistence on joining the search, he always gave her straight answers. Over the past months, that fact alone had earned him her respect.

“At this point, even if the kidnappers wanted to give him back, they’d be afraid to because they know I have the money to overturn every stone until I find them and bring them to justice.”

“Yes.”

“And after this long on the run, they have to be getting desperate.”

“If they are on the run.”

She ignored that and continued with her thought. “Desperate people do desperate things.”

“Yes, Amelia, they do.”

She was suffocating. She laid her head back against the thin pillows. “They might be driven to…get rid of the evidence.”

“There’s always been that possibility.”

And others, as well. Charles might have been taken by another kind of crazy. The kind that liked little boy’s bodies. Her son’s body might be nothing more than decaying bones in a ditch somewhere.

Hand over her mouth, Amy choked back bile.

“He’s alive and well, Brad,” she managed to whisper.

“We have no reason to believe otherwise.”

Except possibly the fact that, in five long months, they’d found no concrete evidence to support that belief.

“He is, isn’t he?” Her voice broke.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Amelia. You have no business being there in some motel room by yourself. You should be home with Cara, seeing your counselor regularly.”

“I don’t need a counselor. I need my son.”

“You’ve been all over the state of Wisconsin chasing inconsequential leads. Don’t spend the next few months getting to know Michigan the same way. Go home. Let me do my job.”

“If you’d done your job, I’d be home—with my son.”

No one knew more than she how dedicated Brad was to this case—how many hours he put in, how frustrated and disturbed he felt at times when the clock kept ticking and leads turned up nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she said, all too aware that her apology was inadequate.

“Tell me about today.”

“A woman in a gas station recognized Kathy’s picture lat night,” Amy said softly. “She said Kathy was staying at a motel down the road. There was no sign of her, but when I went by this afternoon for another look at the parking lot, a green Grand Am with a brunette at the wheel pulled out in front of me. Her shoulders were slight, like Kathy’s. She seemed the same height. I’m sure it was her.”

“Did you get the license plate?”

“It was a Michigan plate, not the Illinois one we knew about, but that doesn’t mean anything. If she’s capable of taking a child, she certainly wouldn’t have a problem switching plates.”

“If she’d taken a child, I’d agree with you.”

She gave him the plate number, then said, “I followed her all afternoon, Brad. She led me to this little town, Lawrence. You know where it is?”

“Vaguely. Is that where you are?”

“Yes.”

“I take it you lost the car you were following?”

“She turned off onto a series of old roads that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. There were no streetlights, no houses around to light the area. It got dark and all I had to go by were her taillights.”

“Which, if she knew she was being followed, she could have turned off.”

“She’d still have had brake lights.”

“Not if she slowed down enough not to need her brakes.”

“I went back and took every turnoff,” Amy told him, frustrated and confused all over again. “Even private drives. I don’t know how she could’ve disappeared into thin air like that.”

“You drove, by yourself, in the dark, on deserted private roads.”

“Of course. I didn’t want to lose her.”

“What about losing yourself?” he asked, real anger in his voice. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was? Who knows what might’ve happened to you?”

“I’d have handled it,” Amy said. “I had my cell phone.”

“Which you didn’t use.”

“I was looking for Charles. Nothing else mattered.”

“And what if you’d found him and ended up getting abducted yourself?”

Then at least she’d be spending this night with her son in her arms.

“If, and I’m not saying it’s so, but if these people are dangerous, Amelia, they wouldn’t be averse to hurting you in front of Charles just to get his cooperation.”

She was getting dizzy. Light-headed. Nauseous again.

“It would be so much easier if they’d just wanted money,” Brad continued, “but with no ransom requests, absolutely everything about this case is random.”

Another given that had been discussed too many times.

“I’m taking another look at some of your competitors, Amelia,” he said when she was thinking about disconnecting the call.

“Okay.”

“We might notice something—some big projects that have been awarded with you out of the picture, a sudden influx of cash…”

“Wainscoat hasn’t lost any work.”

“And you have your finger on the pulse of the construction business these days? You know what projects are up for bid and who they’re going to? You know what people in the industry are saying about Wainscoat? About you?”

Longing for the sleeping pills that had been prescribed for her the previous August—which she’d never used—Amy turned her head on the pillow.

“You think someone could be slowly sabotaging me, insinuating doubt about Wainscoat’s reliability, trying to undermine the years of trust we’ve built?”

“It’s possible.”

“Wouldn’t Cara know?”

“That depends on how talented the culprit is.”

God, she was tired. Too tired to care if she lost her business.

“How valid is your theory?” she asked.

“Valid enough to warrant a check, Amelia.”

“On a scale of one to ten.”

“Four to five.”

Amy hooked a pillow with one arm, hugging it to her. She took an odd and immediate comfort from the soft worn cotton and flattened foam. A feeling similar to the reassurance brought about by Brad Dorchester’s thoroughness.

“Can you please call me Amy?”

“If you’d prefer.”

“I would.”

“If you won’t go home, at least give me your word that, in the future, you’ll call me before taking off on a chase.”

“You won’t stop me.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then yes, I’ll call you.” She’d at least try.

“Good. Now get some rest…Amy.”

As if she could.

She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.

The kid was crying again. She hadn’t been prepared for that. Never thought that a kid who was five years old would still cry.

But this one did. All the time—or so it seemed to her. He didn’t cry when she was pulling him along and he fell down and skinned his knee so bad there was blood all over. That she could’ve understood. Nor any of the times she’d slapped him. Not even when she’d made him throw his ice-cream cone away the day she’d seen a dress in a store window that she wanted to try on and there’d been a No Food Allowed sign posted at the front door.

She would’ve understood that, too. Probably would have yelled at him to shut up. But she’d have understood.

But no—she pulled one of her fluffy feather pillows over her head to drown out the pathetic sound before it pissed her off enough to make her get up and do something about it—this kid only cried for one reason.

The one reason she absolutely could not forgive.

The fucking kid was crying for his mother.

Needed ASAP, Blade, Loader & Scraper operators…

How did one operate a Scraper? For that matter, what was a Scraper?

Printing pressman, exp. only…

That left her out.

ADULT NEWSPAPER CARRIERS WANTED. Immediate openings. Must be 18 or older. Call…

Amy circled it.

Janitor needed, Lawrence Elementary School. No experience necessary. FT position. Salary commensurate w/exp. Apply M-F, 8-3, at Lawrence Elementary main office.

Perfect.

“Can I get you more coffee, ma’am?”

“What?” Amy looked up from the newspaper want ads. “Oh, no, thank you, I’ve had enough.”

“You sure I can’t get you something else to eat?”

“No thanks.” She smiled at the friendly girl dressed in an old-fashioned waitress uniform with big front pockets. “The toast was fine.”

“You hardly ate any of it.”

“I wasn’t hungry.” Amy glanced back at the paper. “Listen, you wouldn’t happen to know where the elementary school is, would you?”

“Sure, it’s just down this road.” She pointed out the window to the road Amy had taken into town the night before. “Go right at the corner. It’s about half a mile down the street. There’re some swings in the side yard. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” Amy smiled again.

Coffeepot in hand, the girl continued on to the next table, and Amy read the ad one more time. Infiltrating towns had become a way of life for her. Plans formed naturally, as though she’d been living this way forever.

Sometimes that was how it seemed.

She hardly gave a thought anymore to what her shareholders would think of their CEO cleaning toilets.

Or sitting here, dressed in a pair of cheap jeans, a polyester orange sweater and tennis shoes, in this sticky-tabled restaurant with black scuff marks all over the floor.

Remembering Brad’s theory that someone might be out to destroy her professional reputation, Amy still didn’t care. She’d sacrificed so much for Wainscoat Construction, and in the end, all that money hadn’t been enough to buy her the one thing that mattered. Her son’s safety.

Which was why she was sitting in a greasy spoon in a town that would never be able to afford the services of a nationally renowned group of builders. And it was why she belonged there.

Each of the small towns was a bit different, yet her goal was completely the same. Get into the schools, scour records. Of course, Charles wouldn’t be registered under his own name, but maybe, being the boy’s mother, she’d recognize some hint. Some clue, however slight. Maybe a new student who chose chocolate milk on the lunch plan…

And outside of school, her aim was to get to know the townspeople enough to win their trust—and their confidences. Be an ordinary woman getting to know other ordinary people. Put herself in the various places where she might hear talk of children. And maybe the mention of one child.

The goal was to find Charles.

But never had a plan fallen into her lap as easily as it had today. It must mean something.

The job was made for her. She had to get to the school, show Amy Wayne’s fake ID she’d found frighteningly easy to obtain using her own social security number, give Cara as her reference and secure the position before it was given to someone else.

She should have asked for the check.

Where was that girl?

Amy glanced around—and noticed a car pulling out of the gas station/convenience store across the street. A green Grand Am.

Throwing a twenty-dollar bill on the tabletop, she grabbed her purse and the cheap navy parka and ran—across four lanes of traffic. Glad of the tennis shoes that were a regular part of her wardrobe now, Amy was only vaguely aware of the honking horns.

Yanking her picture of Kathy out of the back pocket of her bag, Amy cut in front of a man wearing overalls, buying a pack of cigarettes at the counter.

“Have you seen this woman?” she asked addressing both the bearded customer and the middle-aged female clerk.

“Yeah, she was just in here,” the clerk said. “Wearing a pretty fancy white ski jacket and expensive-looking black pants.”

“She left in that green Pontiac,” the man added. “She was real nice-looking in a natural sort of way.” And then, “You know her?”

Amy didn’t bother to answer, just ran to the door.

Her car was across the street. She was losing valuable time.

Hand on the door, she stopped. “You didn’t happen to notice if she had a small boy with her, did you?”

“Nope, she was by herself,” the clerk said.

“She bought animal crackers, though,” the man, a friendly sort, told her. “And two ice-cream bars. I noticed mostly because she cut in front of me and then I couldn’t figure out why a woman all by herself needed two of ’em at once. It wasn’t like she could save one for later….”

The door closed behind Amy, who was already halfway across the parking lot. Animal crackers were Charles’s favorite—next to ice-cream bars. Johnny had bought both for him regularly. To go with the brie and filet mignon her little boy more commonly got at home.

Amy’s son might not have been at the store, but Kathy had to be going to him.

And he had to be close. That extra ice-cream bar wasn’t going to last long.

Holding up her hand to stop traffic, Amy ran back across the street, ignoring the angry honking. The Thunderbird purred instantly to life and Amy threw it in reverse, blinking away tears as she backed out of the parking space.

Kathy had at least five minutes on her.

They seemed like five years.

3

Squealing out onto County Road 215, gravel flying behind her, Amy choked back emotion until she could no longer feel the acidic burning inside her. She was going to get this woman.

Kathy had taken Charles. Amy knew it as surely as if Johnny were speaking to her from heaven. Knew it despite what Brad and the police had said. The feeling was stronger than intuition. Stronger than desperation.

The first bend didn’t faze her. She leaned to the right as the powerful car took the curve, her eyes intent on the road unfolding before her. A straight stretch. But the two-lane road gave her nothing she wanted. No green Grand Am. Only a slow-moving rusty blue pickup with two sheep in its bed, a bearded and bent old man at the wheel, and windows so clouded she could hardly see through them. It was blocking her view.

“Damn!”

Jerking the wheel to the left, Amy crossed the center yellow line far enough to see beyond the truck. A station wagon was coming from the opposite direction.

“Get out of my way,” she growled at the driver of the pickup, which was only inches from her front bumper. Every second these people took from her gave Kathy an edge.

The station wagon passed. Amy crossed the center line again. A sport utility vehicle was coming at her now. And then another pickup truck.

The car’s defrost was blowing at full speed. Every muscle in her body tense, Amy rode the back of the blue pickup, laying on her horn, willing the driver to get nervous and pull over. He was doing ten miles under the speed limit. It wasn’t fair.

But then, life wasn’t fair. Nothing had been made clearer to Amy these past months. Intellectually she’d always known that, but now she understood what it really meant, understood—viscerally, emotionally—how it felt to be the recipient of perpetual unfairness. Life had never been fair. Her privileged existence had simply made her unaware of it.

The pickup driver didn’t slow down and pull over to let her pass. He didn’t speed up. With nearly frozen fingers she pulled the cheap black gloves from her pocket and put them on.

It took her a precious ten minutes to finally get around the old man. Ten minutes that stretched her already dangerously taut nerves.

Engine roaring as it slipped into high gear, the Thunderbird sped up till the speedometer needle flew to the end of its range. The road continued straight for a mile or two. And there were no cars in sight. At least not on the side of the road that mattered to her. The damn blue pickup had given Kathy a chance to get away.

When Amy started to wonder if the driver of the pickup was an accomplice of Kathy’s—perhaps he’d even hidden her the night before—she gave herself a mental shake. She couldn’t afford this kind of paranoia; it only obscured her goal. Okay, she’d lost ten minutes. She’d find them. The roads were clear, the day crisp and sunny. At the rate she was driving, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour to catch up with Kathy.

So she started to plan. How was she going to handle the apprehension? Call the police? They’d exonerated the younger woman.

She had to stay calm. Act precisely, correctly, to ensure that her new life with Charles began that day, immediately. There would be no further investigating. No charges filed against Kathy for illegal behavior. All Amy wanted was her son.

Glancing at her speedometer, she frowned. The illegal behavior in question might well be hers—a traffic violation. She kept her foot on the gas. So what if she got a speeding ticket?

She’d willingly pay.

“I need your help.”

Clutching his cell phone—it was the number she always called—Brad Dorchester looked out at, but didn’t see, the panoramic view of snowy Denver from the thirtieth-floor window of his office high-rise.

“Amy,” he said, the stiff muscles in his jaw making words difficult. “Where are you?”

Would there be time for him to save her pretty ass?

“On the road. It was Kathy I was following yesterday, Brad. I saw her again this morning—at a convenience store across the street. The clerk and a customer both ID’d her from her picture.”

Brad’s gaze returned to his office. To the mass of papers and photos and reports spread on the conference-size table across the room. He didn’t have to look at them to know what they contained. He knew them all by rote, played them over and over in his mind like an irritatingly catchy tune.

The papers and photos represented hundreds of hours of work—all generated because of one very small boy. Charles Wainscoat Dunn.

Brad shook his head, then wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, which had taken on a habitual soreness. He had all the information. And it wasn’t doing a damn bit of good.

Dared he hope that his second thorough investigation of the world of construction business would turn up something new?

“Did you follow her?” He hated to ask. Hated to give Amelia Wainscoat any encouragement in her current endeavor.

“I’m trying, Brad,” she said now. His stomach sank at her eagerness. “I’ve been on 215—you know one of those two-lane roads that—”

“—only go to one place,” he finished for her. He knew. Not only had he been up and down them himself, he’d been hearing her talk about them for months. Picturing her racing over them all alone in a vain search that was going to kill her sooner or later.

If not physically, then emotionally and mentally. He just wasn’t sure which would come first.

“I haven’t seen her since she left the convenience store. I’m approaching M-43, which ends in South Haven. She’d have to take the highway from there.”

If anything happened to Amelia Wainscoat while she was out there trying to do his job, he was sure as hell going to end up carrying that guilt around forever. He didn’t appreciate the burden.

Goddammit! If she’d just let him concentrate on doing his job, instead of making him waste time worrying about her.

“So should I stop in South Haven and risk letting her get farther ahead of me, or do I skip the town and risk the possibility that she might have stopped there?”

“I’d check the town. If she didn’t stop, it won’t take long to figure that out.”

He couldn’t believe he was giving her reinforcement to continue with this futile course.

“But what if she went on ahead?”

Phone lodged between his ear and his shoulder, Brad rolled up the sleeves of the white cotton shirt he’d tucked into his slacks at an ungodly hour that morning. “She’ll only have an hour or so. It shouldn’t be hard to follow her trail.”

“Okay.”

“Amy, I’m putting some of my men on this.” Even though he knew the nanny was a dead end. He’d assigned two men to make absolutely certain of that. They’d checked every aspect of her background, spent weeks doing surveillance—and they’d come up with nothing.

“Good.”

He’d already called in the license plate number. “Keep your phone on. I’ll be checking in every hour. Call me sooner if you find anything.”

“Okay.”

He studied the table across the room again. He could rearrange the papers there. Stare at the photos until he went blind. And still, the facts weren’t going to change.

“She was exonerated, Amy.”

“I know.”

“She’s perfectly free to travel across the state of Michigan, or any other state, for that matter.”

“She left town right after the police dropped her as a suspect and she’s been missing ever since.”

“Who, besides you, is looking for her? The police aren’t. And after all the negative publicity, who could blame her for starting over?”

Amy ignored his remark. “I’m going to spend the rest of my days hunting her down if that’s what it takes.”

“If you find her, don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.”

Why didn’t he feel confident about that?

“What should I do?” she asked. “If I find her, I mean.”

Questions like that really scared him. She didn’t even have a goddamned plan.

“Nothing,” he said, his feet landing on the floor as he pushed away from his desk and stood. “You should go home and let my men take care of this.”

“I’m going to question her, but what’s the right tactic?” Amy continued, ignoring him. “Do I act friendly and pretend this is a great coincidence, try to reestablish some trust? Or do I try to bluff her with the idea of some new evidence, hoping I can scare her into a confession?”

Jaw so tight he couldn’t speak, Brad wandered over to the conference table. With his free hand in the pocket of a pair of navy Dockers he stared down at the array of documents, picturing, instead, the beautiful and completely out-of-her-element heiress alone on a county road in Michigan.

“Come on, Brad, I don’t have much time. I’ve just taken the South Haven turnoff.”

“Stay out of this, Amy,” he muttered, refusing to acknowledge the cold sweat slinking down his back. “If you do find her, and that’s a big if, I don’t want you going near her. Keep her in sight, call me immediately and don’t do another damn thing.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Amy.”

“I know. She bought animal crackers, Brad. And two ice-cream bars. Not one, two.”

Animal crackers and ice-cream bars. Charles’s favorite foods.

If Amelia Wainscoat really found her ex-nanny, she wasn’t going to wait quietly on the sidelines. Kathy Stead would be lucky if she wasn’t down at the first count.

And then Brad would be wasting time getting his client out of jail rather than doing what she was paying him to do. Find her missing son.

“Amy.”

“Gotta go, Brad. I’m just getting into town. It’s quaint. Quiet. Old-fashioned shops with angled curb parking. I don’t see the Grand Am yet….”

“Amy…” Men who’d been trained to kill were intimidated by that tone.

“I know, Brad.” Her voice would have been weary if not for the excitement that tinged it. “I’ll call you.”

He said her name again, but was met with a click as she hung up.

Swearing, Brad started to count to ten to cool down before he talked to her again. He made it to three before hitting speed dial.

“Yeah?” She didn’t conceal her irritation.

She was irritated?

“Don’t bluff. You’ll risk getting any ensuing confession thrown out of court.”

This time it was Brad who disconnected. But only because he had some favors to call in. He wanted a man on Amelia Wainscoat’s tail in the next half hour. Which meant finding an off-duty cop in the state of Michigan who’d be glad to make some extra money.

That done, satisfied that he’d hired a man he could trust, one who came with the highest recommendation from one of his ex-FBI buddies, Brad had a conference call with his Wainscoat team, Diane Smith and Doug Blyth, two of the country’s best investigators, who each had another four or five leg-work men reporting to them. Together they decided on a couple of guys they could pull from their current assignments. These two would be sent to Michigan on the next available flights.

His last call was to request that the plane Ms. Wainscoat had provided for his private use be gassed up and ready to go, just in case.

The only thing keeping him from heading straight to Michigan was that damn phone call he might or might not get. As much as he needed to do something besides stand in his office and stare at papers that led him nowhere, he couldn’t risk being in the air—where he couldn’t keep his cell on—if Amy called him.

Knowing her, she wouldn’t try twice.

Clementine’s was nice as far as bar-and-grill joints went. Its warmth was almost a shock after the bone-chilling January cold. With its long, historical bar and lots of tables and booths for friends and families to eat and enjoy themselves, the restaurant had a welcoming feel. But no one there had seen Kathy Stead. Nor had they seen her at the department store, a place whose wooden floors spoke of another era, a simpler time when kids could wander downtown by themselves. When parents didn’t have to worry about some maniac stealing them away.

On her way out of town, Amy picked up her phone with fingers stiff from cold and hit redial. More because she couldn’t stand to be alone with herself, with her disappointment, than because she had any real desire to speak with Brad Dorchester. The man depressed her.

Still, she’d told him she’d call. And there was a small but persistent part of her that trusted him implicitly, that wanted to feed him every single piece of knowledge she had in case it was the one thing he could use.

A part of her that needed to know she wasn’t doing this alone.

He picked up in the middle of the first ring.

“She wasn’t there. I’m on 196 heading north.” The two-lane highway was only slightly easier to travel than M-43.

“I’ve got someone heading up M-43 into South Haven and beyond in case you missed something.”

Amy nodded. Brad was taking her seriously.

Still, tension ate away at her regained sense of control.

“What’s your man going to do if he finds her?” As she’d already revealed to Brad, she had no concrete plan for getting information from the woman who’d managed to dupe the Chicago police and FBI into thinking she was innocent. Up to this point, her plan had always been about finding Kathy. And nothing about what she’d do when she actually did.

“Ask questions,” Brad said. “Try to get her to reveal something. It’s all he can do.”

“What kind of questions?”

A long pause. And then a sigh. “You’re in way over your head, Amy. Go home.”

The grassy median, brown now from the winter cold, sped by her window. Pine trees grew in the distance. “What kind of questions?” she asked again.

“Anything to keep her talking. Maybe ask her about a tire on her car needing air. Maybe about the food in the restaurant she stopped at. He’ll know what to do. The idea is to get her to disclose anything at all about her life. Where she’s been. Where she’s going. Why. And hopefully, if he can keep her talking long enough, she’ll give us a detail that’ll crack this case.”

He paused and she could hear him sigh a second time. “Details. It so often comes down to details.”

Amy quickly cataloged his response. When she found Kathy, she’d be ready. While the car heater blew steadily, warming her skin, her heart remained completely unaffected.

“What if she won’t tell me anything?” she asked, her mind already skipping ahead, playing out a full scenario. “I can’t just let her walk away.”

“She’d better not tell you anything because you’d better not be talking to her. My men will get her to talk, Amy. It’s what they’re trained to do. If not at first, they’ll just happen to turn up wherever she stops next. Go home. Let us do our job.”

Yeah, and if she’d done that, his men would still be in Wisconsin or Chicago or Washington, D.C. or wherever else they’d been looking. If not for her, they wouldn’t have any idea that Kathy Stead was traveling on an innocuous strip of highway in western Michigan.

“I’m going to stop in every small town along the way until I find someone who’s seen her,” she replied.

“Keep in mind that you’re doing this against my advice.”

“I know.”

“Call every half hour.” Brad’s voice was gruff, impatient. He was obviously not prepared to entertain any arguments.

She might have argued, anyway, except that he hung up.

And the loneliness once again consumed her.

“No, ma’am, no one here’s seen her.” The middle-aged woman at Monroe’s Café and Grill in Saugatuck handed the snapshot back to Amy with an odd, not quite suspicious but not entirely sympathetic look. “Is she your sister?”

“No.” Amy took the photo, eager to move on. “Just an old high-school friend who used to live in these parts.” She tried to deliver her spiel with some of the ease she usually exhibited. “She’s remarried and I don’t know her new name or I’d just look her up in the phone book.”

Shoulders relaxing, the other woman nodded, her brown eyes warming. “I wish we could be more help,” she said. “Have you tried the sheriff’s office in Douglas? It’s over the bridge, a little past the Holiday Inn. They’d probably know if she lived around here.”

Amy nodded, tucked the picture into the pocket of her parka, thanked the woman and hurried back out into the cold.

Saugatuck appeared to be a tourist town, judging by the marina, shops and bed-and-breakfast places she passed. But it was a small one, although it had its share of big old aluminum-sided homes in pleasant, shady neighborhoods. As quickly as possible, Amy perused as much of the town as she could manage, stopping at Mario’s Pizza, a convenience store and a couple of motels that weren’t name brand. She gave the artists’ shops a miss. Something told her Kathy would not be in the mood for shopping.

And then, as she turned, looking beyond the big trees that lined the town, her heart stopped. Just for a moment. But it was long enough to take her breath away. And to let panic in. There, by the lake, was a ferry. The perfect way for a woman—and her car—to disappear. Amy swore. She tried to take a deep breath to prevent the tears that threatened from falling.

Kathy could already have left. Gone. Missing again.

And if she had, Amy would have to wait who knew how long for the next ferry. By that time, her ex-nanny could be anywhere. Her hand came down hard on the steering wheel. Why the hell did this keep happening?

Johnny? Are you up there? Help.

The Butler served great steaks, a neon sign told her as she drove past to the ferry.

And the Bayside Inn had suites with fireplaces.

A worn wooden sign proclaimed the existence of the Singapore Yacht Club. The deserted facility did not deliver the promise of its expensive-sounding name.

The bandstand by the ferry was completely desolate. Forlorn-looking. Not even the ducks were venturing out in this cold.

Maybe the ferry would follow. Maybe it, too, would remain inactive, not operating on such a bone-chilling day.

Of course, Amy wasn’t that lucky. As the cold seeped through her jeans, she stood by the dock and waited while the elderly ferry worker thought back over his morning.

“No, miss, we’ve only had a couple of families and a few business travelers today,” he told her when she inquired about the day’s passengers.

“You’re sure you haven’t seen a green Grand Am? Or a woman who looks like this?”

She showed him the weathered snapshot again, just to make sure his old eyes really saw the woman depicted there. Her fingers were shaking, though from the cold penetrating her body or the stress consuming it she had no idea.

He held the photo close to his face.

“I’m sure,” he finally said, still studying Kathy’s image. “I haven’t seen her.”

Amy’s cheeks hurt as she broke into a grin. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and half skipped back to her car. This time no was a good answer.

Brad called. Three of his investigators were covering western Michigan. One was behind her. One in front of her. And one was taking the off-shoot roads. Amy was relieved to hear the news, but she couldn’t rest.

She did, however, take the time to scout out the elementary school in Saugatuck after her visit to the sheriff’s office turned up nothing. Or rather, the elementary school in Douglas, Saugatuck’s neighboring town. They split educational responsibilities; Saugatuck had the high school, Douglas, kindergarten to grade six.

If Kathy was living nearby with Charles, he might, at that very moment, be in Douglas Elementary. Learning to read. Or to do simple math.

Maybe playing in the schoolyard.

Amy hoped Charles had a warm coat with a hood. He’d always been prone to ear infections during the winter months.

But then, Kathy would know that. She was the one who’d taken Amy’s son to the doctor, picked up his prescriptions and more often than not, administered them. It had usually been Kathy—or Johnny—who was up nights, walking with the crying toddler, soothing him, while Amy got a few hours sleep before having to face another day of high-pressure meetings with powerful men who frequently tried to get the best of the young woman doing a man’s job.

Her father’s job.

William they’d trusted. With Amy, during those first two years, they’d withheld judgment until she’d proved herself worthy of their confidence. William’s Amelia had always been respected, but more because William thought the sun rose and set on her than because of her MBA.

From the time of her mother’s death in a car accident when Amelia was less than a year old, the child had been a regular at the Wainscoat offices. She and William had been closer than most fathers and daughters, enjoying each other’s company, sharing each other’s vision of life, the world and, of course, the business. When he died so unexpectedly, Amelia might have died, too, if not for Charles. And Johnny. And the sudden responsibility that had been thrust on her—to run the company her father had spent his life building.

Amy looked at the Kid’s Stuff Park across the street from Douglas Elementary. Not a soul in sight.

The school, a one-story brick building that took up almost an acre, was on Randolph, right off Blue Star Highway. Two white mobile units were the first thing she saw as she pulled into the almost full parking lot. Friday morning, nearly eleven. Too early for lunch. School would still be in session.

Cut-out snowflakes adorned the classroom windows. They upset her. She was missing out on all the art projects made by tiny hands.

Please, God, don’t let Charles be missing out on them, too.

The playground behind the school was as empty as the bandstand had been. Empty, cold, unfriendly.

Hoping she wouldn’t be stopped, Amy parked and headed into the building like the CEO she was. As though she had every right to be there. As though she’d never been told no in her life.

With a competence born of habit, she scanned the hallways, determined the school’s layout and then quickly peeked into the classrooms on both sides of the corridor. It didn’t take her long to locate the kindergarten. Or to see that her son was not among the children there.

It took her a lot longer to dispel the heavy darkness descending on her as she smiled at a passing administrator and made her way back to her car. Leaving her gloves off, she started the engine.

Why did she let her hopes rise every single damn time? Why couldn’t she just wait until she found out the results before she even thought about celebrating? Why, whenever she came to a new town, did she have to envision her reunion with her son? Play it out in glorious detail so that each time the dream died, it was that much more painful?

But Amy knew why she didn’t stop, why she let her hopes build. Because as soon as she quit hoping, her life might as well be finished.

It was those images of Charles’s little arms wrapped around her that got her out of bed every morning. That kept her eyes open and her mind clear while she continued, day after day, to venture into the unknown for something that might not be there.

She had to believe.

It was that or die.

4

She made it onto Randolph before she had to pull over. Cold though she was, her body was sweating, her head light. She found it hard to think. The cycle of hope and disappointment got to her sometimes, jeopardized her equilibrium, her ability to go on. Or at least, during moments like these, it seemed that way.

Where was her phone?

Amy looked down at the console, fumbling in the general vicinity of where she’d left her cell. Finally her little finger grazed the plastic.

With her head resting against the seat, she felt the keypad with her thumb, pushed a speed-dial key and hit the call button.

“Hi,” she said softly when Cara answered.

“Amelia! Where are you, love? How are you? Do you have any news?”

If she’d had the energy, Amy would have smiled.

The vent was pointed directly at her face, a blast of heat hitting her on the left cheek. Irritated and hot, she thought about moving her head, the vent, something.

“I’m in Douglas, Michigan,” she said, thankful that she didn’t have to hide the weariness that was swallowing her up. Cara would see past any attempt she made to pretend. Her friend had been there last month, when Amy was pretty much catatonic for the days it had taken to get through Christmas. Cara had tried, forcing Amy to go to Christmas Eve service, insisting on the traditional turkey dinner, buying Amy a gift—a beautiful, one-of-a-kind mohair coat from Amy’s favorite designer.

The coat had brought tears to Amy’s eyes, the only evidence of emotion she’d shown the entire five days she’d been home.

She thought of that coat, tucked away, unworn, in her closet at home. Amy Wayne had no use for a mohair coat. “I found Kathy this morning, but—”

“You what!”

Cara’s shriek resounded in Amy’s aching head.

“I saw her leave a parking lot this morning. I was in a diner and apparently all she needed was the five minutes she had on me. I haven’t seen her since.”

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