5

      Thursday, May 14

      12:01 a.m.

      Michaele stood there in shocked disbelief. Even after the buzzing reminded her to hang up, she remained rooted in place, trying to reassure herself that she’d heard incorrectly.

      Suddenly, reacting as though the phone’s handset was a venomous thing, she dropped it back into the cradle, then stared out the picture window at the empty road. Beyond. Into the opaqueness of the dense woods.

      As understanding grew into fear, she reached for the phone again, only to draw back.

      Who are you going to call? Calm down. What if you’re wrong? What if this is somebody’s idea of a joke?

      That was it. Michaele rushed into the kitchen and jerked open the door. “So help me,” she muttered under her breath, “if you borrowed someone’s car phone or got someone else to call me, thinking you would pay me back for—”

      The Firebird she had expected to see in the driveway, with her sister laughing behind the wheel, wasn’t there.

      Michaele’s stomach grew queasy. Quickly locking the door, she snatched up the phone book next to the refrigerator and, with trembling fingers, flipped through the white pages. Her dialing was equally haphazard, and she exhaled with relief when she finally heard the ringing that told her she hadn’t botched that last attempt. The stove clock read 12:03. The ghoulish time didn’t slip past her, nor did the belated realization that she must have dozed off, after all.

      On the fourth ring, he answered. “Yeah?”

      “Jared, thank God.” His strong, though irritated, voice had her instantly forgiving him his earlier behavior. “I know I should’ve called the station, but I—”

      “Michaele?” There was a muffled sound as though he were sitting up. “What’s wrong?”

      “I think Faith is missing.”

      He was silent for several seconds. “Come again?”

      “She never got home, and I just got this awful call. He said—”

      “Are you and Buck at the house?”

      “Yes. No! Buck’s at the garage.”

      “You’re there alone? Stay put,” he snapped. “I mean it. Don’t go outside. Do nothing until I get there.”

      “But I haven’t told you—”

      He hung up.

      She couldn’t believe it. Instead of listening to what she had to say, instead of assuring her that he would immediately have his men on the night shift look for Faith, he was coming here because she was alone? Heaven save her from the entire male race! Calling him instead of the station had been a mistake, after all.

      But her frustration didn’t last long. As soon as she hung up and looked out the parted kitchen door curtains, out beyond the moths circling dizzily in the porch light to the indecipherable darkness beyond, the skin along her arms and at the back of her neck began tingling. Someone could be standing just beyond, maybe hiding as close as behind the wrecker, watching her. The thought made her feel exposed even though the oversize NASCAR T-shirt she liked to wear to bed almost reached her knees.

      Her heart pounding, she rushed over to tug the curtains closed and to recheck the lock. The lock was one of those flimsy twist jobs in a door that was half glass, which made her think about the other doors. Not once since she’d come home had she bothered checking them to see if they were locked or not.

      With a new dread, she hurried from the back door to the front, testing each one. Everything was as it should be, but her heart continued its wild beating, anyway, and so when done, she stopped in the hallway, her back pressed to the wall, the one spot where she knew she couldn’t be seen from any window.

      Get a grip, Ramey. This isn’t like you.

      Nevertheless, a flash of lights on the living room wall made her catch her breath. In the next instant she recognized them as car lights. Jared? He lived north on Dog-wood, more than a half-mile away. Could he have dressed and gotten here this fast?

      Faith!

      Anger blossomed anew as Michaele ran to the kitchen. Once again she flung open the door.

      With mixed feelings, she heard the white patrol car’s engine shut down just before Jared climbed out and rushed up the steps. It looked as if he’d pulled on the short-sleeved blue shirt he’d been wearing earlier because one of the buttons was undone, and his jeans were zipped but not fastened. Although his face was shadowed by the straw cowboy hat, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot and that the always pronounced shadow of whiskers was darker than ever. The scent of beer that drifted in with him confirmed the hunch that he hadn’t gotten as far as bed yet when she’d called.

      “Should you be driving in your condition?” she asked as he entered.

      “If that’s an invitation for coffee, I won’t turn it down.”

      With a lift of her eyebrows, she took the saucepan they kept on the stove and filled it with what she estimated was enough water to fill a large mug. They didn’t bother with coffee machines in the Ramey household; Faith refused to drink anything but store-bought latte, and Buck doctored anything put before him with so much sugar and milk, Michaele figured instant was good enough.

      As she went to the pantry for the jar, she said, “Maybe you should call one of your men to handle this.”

      “I’m not drunk.”

      She refused to be intimidated by his terse reply. If anyone had the right to be out of sorts, it was her. “I call you and tell you that I think my sister is missing, and not only don’t you ask me any questions about her, but you waste valuable time driving over here when you should be out looking for her.”

      “My first priority was to make sure you were all right.”

      “Of course I’m all right. I’m here!”

      Jared took off his hat and ran his other hand over his hair. “Michaele, you don’t know what’s—” He signaled her to give him a moment, then replaced the hat. “It’s not going to help anything to get sarcastic.”

      Although not ready to admit she was out of line, she did back off by getting a mug from an open cabinet. “Faith never got home from school,” she told him. “And there’s been a phone call.”

      She repeated everything the caller had said. When she finished, she glanced over her shoulder. Jared just stood there, his eyes closed.

      “You’re thinking someone’s pulling one over on me, that I’m being melodramatic. I hope I am. But the more I think about it, the more I feel—He was smiling when he spoke, I could tell. That’s what unnerved me. He was enjoying himself.”

      Once Jared met her gaze again, not only did his expression tell her that he didn’t think she was overreacting, but he looked sick to his stomach. “Did you recognize the guy’s voice?”

      “No.” She suffered a new pang of guilt. “To be honest, I’m not even sure it was a man.”

      “You just said—”

      “I’d fallen asleep and was disoriented. The call lasted only a few seconds.” As she replayed the awful conversation in her mind, she tried to portion out a spoonful of coffee granules. Most spilled onto the counter.

      Jared took over and completed the task. “Could the caller have altered his or her voice?”

      “I guess. I don’t know. No, it had to have been a man.”

      “Because…?”

      “Because.”

      “Harold